


this will all end in flames

by thestarsarewinning



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: (i think), (there are parts of this that are more serious than I intended), Accidental Supervillainy, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Bad Science, Conspiracies, Falling In Love, I really have no idea, M/M, Mind Control, PTSD moments after something happens, if anyone mentions Charles Xavier they're wrong, the humdrum is never once referred to as the humdrum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 15:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17851916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsarewinning/pseuds/thestarsarewinning
Summary: in which Baz, Simon and the gang are superheroes, superhero might be a relative term, Baz and Simon hate each other, except they really don't, and there may or may not be a conspiracy to solve





	this will all end in flames

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my contribution to the Carry On Big Bang. this has been loads of fun, a lot of stress and has changed in idea about twelve times since my original idea. it's also longer than i thought it would be and unbetaed so all of the mistakes are mine,,
> 
> it's complete for now, tho there will be an epilogue posted pretty soon,,
> 
> there's some incredible art to go with this, check it out at @carry-on-big-bang, also huge thanks to @taliamamane for the art!!
> 
> i have no right to anything, i'm just borrowing the characters to play house,,

I catch a taxi to the train station.

Once, my father might have driven me, but that’s a thing of the past.

This is easier, anyhow. And it’s not like it matters; it’s a ten-minute taxi ride, an hour on the train, one stop of the underground and then I’m there.

I like the journey, anyway. Gives me time to breathe. I get to be Baz Pitch once more, not just one of the Grimm’s. It can take a while to drop the scowl I wear at home.

The first year I caught the train, I didn’t breathe out until I was there and the sight of the building almost made me want to cry. I could have burnt it down I was so happy to see it, but that was years ago. I’m far more in control now.

I don’t even think about setting fire to the train when it’s late arriving. I did, once. Set fire to a train. I mean, not because it was late; it was necessary and Ebb told me to.

I’d like to do it again. Just once. Because I can.

The train is three minutes late, and I stand on the platform wishing I’d bothered to stop at the Starbucks after all. I’ve been waiting all summer for a frappucino and I skipped it because I thought I’d miss the train and be hours late to Watford.

Late as it is, the train is quiet, which is a blessing. I was fourteen the second year I made the journey by myself and all alone in the carriage. I spent the trip practising summoning flames and Ebb met me at the station and gave me a bollocking. Somehow she always knows when one of us risks something.

In my defence, that had been the summer Father hadn’t let me practise; Daphne and he were happy and Mordelia was finally more than just a wriggling blanket I wasn’t supposed to be near.

“In case it’s dangerous. You wouldn’t want Mordelia getting any ideas. That it’s normal.”

My father has always had such a way with words.

When I was eleven, he drove me to school, walked me inside and demanded that they take care of me. He said they owed him that much, since they’d failed my mother.

Ebb hadn’t raised an eyebrow, just taken my hand and walked me to my room. I hadn’t believed she was one of the adults then. She didn’t look it, but she was. Still is, and that’s terrifying. They let her teach us, and the first thing she showed me was how she could make all the birds in the sky fly in the shape of a dolphin.

I was eleven. These days, they take the shape of a dick.

By the time I’m only half an hour from London, I’ve had three text messages. Two from Penelope, one from Ebb. She’s not supposed to have my number, but it’s for a good cause. Last summer we were both at Pride together and she ended up stopping me from getting trampled when there was someone handing out free water bottles shaped like a penis.

Getting my number was the compromise I talked her down to, in the end. She was going to make me spend the rest of Pride with her and the girl she was failing to hit on, but I’ve got standards. This was the easiest way for me to gain my freedom but also let her know I’d survived the day.

She’s only asking where I am, anyway. She’s not met me at the station for years; there’s always newbies who need her more.

The youngest are babies, it’s understandable that they need her to pick them up from whatever homes they went to over the summer.

Not that we all go home. The worst of us, the weirdest or the ones with families who’s thoughts tend to go along the lines of freaks rather than superheroes get to stay at Watford over the summer, though most of the staff clear off on holiday and they’re left with the Minotaur.

As teachers go, he’s not so bad, but his power is turning himself into a bull. He’s like a less cool version of the Hulk.

Unfortunately, the Hulk isn’t real.

I asked, on my interview for Watford. You’d think, given that there are real heroes, given that this bunch of adults - who look like they’ve just walked off a poster for anti-bullying, with their wide smiles and reassuring nods - are there to let you into their special school where’ll you can learn how to be useful, superheroes like the Hulk would be real too, but no.

Captain America? Fictional. Though he wouldn’t really count. I mean, sure, he’s super, but he did get his powers out of a bottle. Then again, Niall was vaccinated as a baby but it made him literally immune to everything. Everything. I once saw him literally resist dirt.

Tony Stark’s not real either. Well, Iron Man. Fuck it, Tony Stark. He’s as much a hero as anyone else. Still fictional, though. The closest we’ve got would be Penelope. Super intelligence, and sort of something else, augmented by a computer chip she implanted into herself when we were fifteen. Not that anyone else is supposed to know about that. She made me swear on the Bowie album Fiona gave me during the Christmas I stayed with her when I was twelve. She’s still super intelligent, Penelope is, without the chip, and she did actually make me a fireproof suit, so it’s close enough.

The messages from her just request that I not be late this year, which she’ll know are pointless, and a warning in advance that I’m not allowed to make Snow cry before he’s been at Watford an hour.

I didn’t mean to last year; it was an honest victory. He’d walked into the games room, covered in cement and blood, and one minor comment later, he was in tears.

Okay, so it was his first September arriving back at Watford and, whilst I don’t know enough to be sure, Penelope said it was his first time ever going back to somewhere rather than just being passed on to somewhere else, so I probably shouldn’t have been a dick, but it was just easier.

That’s not really an excuse, I know, but it’s the truth. It’s always easier to be a dick to Snow, there’s just something about him.

I text Bunce back, agreeing, and then I remember to text Daphne. She wants to make sure I get there, which is a level of concern I’ve never seen from her before but I perhaps should expect it. She’s trying to fill the role of stepmother, more so recently, and it’s not entirely awful.

By the time I’m done trying not to sound condescending (Penelope accuses me of coming across as imperious over any form of communication — she made me write letters when we were thirteen and apparently I seemed snobbish — so it’s worth the attempt not to), the train’s arrived and all that’s between me and Watford is a suitcase, the underground, and getting up the thirteen steps to the front door of the townhouse that makes up the school.

It’s a struggle with my case, but I make it. Most of my stuff stays there over the summer, this is just the stuff I couldn’t go home without.

Most of it is just clothes that I know will piss my father off. There’s a leather jacket my aunt bought me, a pink jumper Agatha knitted with a wobbly initial on it, and trackies. I’m a little ashamed of them, to be honest, but Ebb bought them for me, they’re comfortable, and I was in the hospital wing for three weeks last year and trousers that weren’t suits or jeans came in useful.

They also happen to make Snow frown, and I’ll take that.

He’s already there when I heave my case through the door and he whirls around to stare at me, knocking the table lamp off of the sign in desk and almost stepping on one of the children.

Typical Snow. He’s like a big, blundering dog, and he falls over himself trying to pick it up.

His hair’s shorter, like he’s shaved it again, and he looks like he could do with a couple of weeks of eating properly. He’s already wearing the uniform, shirt, black trousers, tie hanging loose around his neck. Nothing much changed there. Penelope tied it for him last year.

The lamp’s in pieces by his feet. Ebb doesn’t care. She’s smiling, grey hair hanging over her face, and she still looks simultaneously twenty-seven and twelve.

She sends Simon out of the way before hugging me, again not strictly professional, but it’s nice. The last person to hug me was Mordelia before my father sent her off to her grandmother’s house, and that was halfway through the summer.

“You’re three inches taller.”

She’s still smiling, and it’s jarring slightly because now I have to look down to see her. She’s not wrong; I grew three inches over the holiday, though it’s about time. There were three months last year where it was looking like Snow would be the tallest and that simply cannot be.

“You’re three inches shorter,” I retort and I’ve missed her. Not that I’ll ever tell her that. The second I get mushy, she’ll be telling me about the girl from Pride and how they’re still not a couple. It’s been years since they met, though, so Ebb’s got to be closer to making a move by now.

I get the usual ‘I swear I’ll try not to kill anyone in training/on missions/at movie night’ forms signed without getting to that topic, but before she lets me go, I end up promising that I’ll find her after dinner and fill her in on everything.

Not that there’s anything to tell her. Nothing happened this summer. I spent most of it reading in the library, forgetting to practice the violin and setting fires in the garages when my father was out at community meetings.

Fiona didn’t even come to spring me this summer.

Telling Ebb that will only make her sad, though, and she cries often enough without me prompting her.

I’m not telling Penelope, either.

She’ll already know, for starters, and she’ll just remind of our agreement made when we twelve. Given that her parents have no real idea what goes on here - apart from her mum’s vague aspersions - nothing important from Watford goes home with her.

The rest of my suitcase, the stuff that’s not appalling clothing, is the stuff Penelope couldn’t leave behind, just in case the school burned down, became the base of a secret evil genius or got struck by lightning, but couldn’t take with her. It’s mostly crap tourist stuff we picked up when we were twelve, but it doesn’t stay here without her, and it’s her room I stop off at first instead of my own.

Snow’s there, slumped on her bed, head hanging over the end, feet on the wall, and she’s unpacking book after book, though she drops one when she sees me, and then tries to recover it, her face as red as her hair. “Basilton.”

“Bunce.”

She’s glaring at me and I like it. It’s very her. The red in her hair stands out against the white uniform shirt and it’s the same colour as when we were eleven. She was supposed to be purple this year, that was the plan, but I’m guessing it didn’t take. Unlike her frown. I know from experience that she can keep that up all day, so I relent. “Penelope.”

I hug her then, and that’s even better. She’s shoulder height, but she’s always been so there’s no change there.

My case is propping her door open, and by the time I remember it, she’s already criticised the length of my hair, the greyness of the suit I’m wearing and the fact that my room this year is two floors away without even the fire escape to connect it to hers.

The first year we were here, rooming just across the hall, we spent most of the nights stargazing, making the names up. Agatha arrived when we were thirteen and she knew the real names, not that Penelope didn’t either, and two years ago, Penelope started to squeeze Snow onto the stairs with us.

First year was also the year she bought the London Eye snow globe, the Tower of London posters and the beefeater bear that are currently all crammed into my case. They get pride of place on her chest of drawers when I hand them over, and Snow watches us arrange them with a raised eyebrow.

Last year he asked if Penelope and I were dating, and I was almost sick. That’s not a reflection on Penelope, more Snow’s stupidity and the all-around wrongness of that scenario. She’s more of a sister than my actual sister, though Mordelia is only ten and I’m never at home, and that’s not even taking into consideration how utterly gay I am.

Not that Snow knows. Penelope might not even. We don’t talk about it. It’d just be weird. Of course, really, she’ll know. It’s literally her thing, knowing everything. But we’ve never actually spoken about it.

Agatha doesn’t, either. Snow liked her last year, tried appallingly to flirt with her, and that- Well. As usual, when it comes to Snow, my behaviour was less than stellar. I took Agatha out a couple of times last year. I never called them dates, it’s not like I was trying to lead her on, but it made her happy and it made Snow almost look at me.

Now, Snow is actually staring at me and I don’t know why.

I could ask Penelope, but that’s rather conspicuous and it’s much more fun to stare back at him.

There’s the usual wrinkle in his forehead, the one he gets when he’s trying to make something explode. Not that that’s all Snow does, but it’s his usual party trick and it’s never a good sign.

Penelope’s left her desk chair by the wall for me to drop into, my usual seat in all of her rooms, and I sit, still watching Simon watch me. “Careful, Snow. Don’t want to strain yourself.”

He glowers at me without speaking and that’s typical. He never manages to spit out what he wants to say.

By the time I leave Penelope’s room to unpack my own belongings, Snow still hasn’t said anything and he’s still staring at me. It’s enough to make me want to set him on fire, but that would be a new low, not managing to last even three hours before breaking one of the only rules Watford really has.

**

It turns out that Snow’s room this year is right next to mine.

He’s there, pinning a poster to his door when I emerge for dinner, and he’s staring again. Maybe it’s more like he’s trying to tell if I’m going to punch him for speaking to me or not.

Not like I would. Last year, I didn’t hit him once. Not even when he fucked up in training and almost brought a wall down on me, so the staring is completely needless. It’s very Snow, though.

It takes him another minute to speak, a minute I fill by straightening my jacket and using the hall mirror to slick my hair back from my face and then it’s, “Did you- Um. Good summer, Baz?”

Anticlimactic. And weirdly polite for Snow. Last year, most of our conversations, if one-word exchanges when Penelope wasn’t around to hear count as such, included him calling me a wanker whilst I sneered at him.

Now, I’m the one staring and I was, unfortunately, raised to have better manners than that.

“It was alright, Snow, thank you. Your summer?”

“Same as usual.”

I have no idea what that entails. Snow’s red in the face enough as it is from this…whatever, and I don’t have it in me to ask without being dick; I promised Penelope I wouldn’t be and that means I don’t ask if he and his chavvy normal friends managed to vandalise much or if he blew anything up this summer.

It also means it’s incredibly awkward as I turn down the corridor, stuck keeping pace with Snow in silence as we head for dinner.

Ebb is corralling the babies when we get there, and it’s almost nice, the sight of them. There’s four of them, all aged about six and it’s their first time in the dining room.

It’s one of the few rooms that match the Victorian exterior of the building and it can seem almost surreal if you’re not used to this kind of thing.

Snow’s face still looks like that now, after more than a year, and he takes the seat next to Penelope, leaving me to sit by Niall, practically half a table away. It’s still not quite far enough, though, and as dessert gets shared around, I hear them bickering.

“It’s not that easy, Penny. We’re not friends, not like it is with the rest of you.”

“Simon. It’s something I imagine Basilton would talk to you about. He’s not a monster.”

“Penny.”

“Or Ebb. It’s her…field of interest, too. Albeit from a different perspective.”

“Just forget it.”

Dev and Agatha are between Penelope and me, which makes interrupting them a challenge, and making the mistake of paying too much attention to that end of the table means I get roped into their conversation about Dev’s holiday and the charming American girl who let him feel her up behind Space Mountain at Disney World.

Agatha’s chatter is far less unwelcome, and the dog photos she’s passing around are rather cute. “Her name’s Lucy. My mum rescued her and I’m trying to persuade Ebb to ask Possibelf if I can have her here.”

“She’s lovely, Agatha.”

She’s beaming now, and I’d forgotten just how lovely Agatha herself is when she’s smiling and happy. When we were fifteen, I thought about dating her, seriously. Not just to piss Snow off —he only arrived halfway through spring that year — but even then it wasn’t because I wanted her like that, more because that’s what I thought I should want.

We’re still talking about Lucy when dinner ends, but Ebb corners me before I end up walking Agatha back to her room.

There’s still one of the babies hanging around her, though one look at the girl and there’s no doubt she belongs here: her hair changes colour rapidly, cycling through all the colours of the rainbow as she very solemnly offers to shake my hand.

“Elledora,” is her name, whispered to me as I bend down, and she holds Ebb’s hand like it’s a lifeline.

This is only the second year of the babies being here. Previously Watford was only for those of us who might ever need to do anything with our skills, whoever could, who couldn’t go anywhere else. It’s a new policy, one that officially we haven’t been told why it’s in place. Unofficially, it’s because of Snow.

It’s still not my business, my story to tell, but Snow should have been here years ago. He’s powerful enough and useful enough that he’s dangerous, but no one found him or bothered to try until the last five Children’s Homes he was in burned down.

I got to visit the last one, the morning after it happened. Since fire’s my thing. It was very impressive and even I’m not sure how it happened. Fire isn’t usually Snow’s method of destruction. He’s far more brilliant than that.

Elledora occupies herself by adding whiskers to her face and vanishing them again and again as Ebb tries to avoid sounding like she’s a teacher. She fails, but it’s a nice attempt.

“How did the summer go? Practise much?”

“You know how the holidays are.”

That generally means no. Ebb frowns, looking almost exactly like she does when she’s trying to teach a class. “Weren’t you trying to light targets without touching them? Practise is generally needed for that.”

My eyebrow raises, just a bit.

Ebb sighs. Then the teacher who’s always encouraging and homework focused disappears and the Ebb who once challenged me to set fire to the duck pond emerges, “Too much of a challenge, Baz? Can’t fail if you don’t practice? Wanna admit it?”

“Want to see me try?”

I feel like sticking my tongue out at her and it’s almost enough to make me smile. Non-teacher Ebb is far more fun, even if her answer is no. It has to be, but it’s meaningless.

I could demonstrate, and she knows it; she’d let me, but fire is generally thought to be bad, even if it comes so easily to me. My palm itches just thinking about it, so I fold my hands behind my back and shake my head when she asks if I kept in touch with everyone over the summer.

She looks like she’s about to cry again, at that. “I still speak to everyone I was ‘ere with. Some of them have gone on now, do brilliant things. Wouldn’t know if we didn’t speak. This is your lot’s last year, what are you all gonna do if you don’t actually speak outside of this place?”

She asks valid questions, but Penelope and I have had a plan for years. The first iteration didn’t extend far beyond staying here forever, but these days it’s looking like we’re going to get a flat together.

Telling this to Ebb is not worth it, though, so I shrug and try not to make my expression into a sneer.

The second the conversation veers into seeing each other over the summer, I cut her off, using the now-green-faced girl hanging off of Ebb’s arm as my excuse. “Shouldn’t you be getting her back to the others? I mean, don’t you still keep all the kids together, can’t have one missing from the herd for long.”

All the babies are rooming near staff accommodation, and they treat them more like actual infants than children. The hospital wing is near there, and it’s lights out at seven thirty for anyone under the age of ten.

Elledora’s grip on Ebb’s hand tightens and I get to escape then.

Escape is only temporary because Penelope’s waiting for me, her nose wrinkled and her foot tapping impatiently. She’s never really understood why I like Ebb. In Penelope’s world, she’s a teacher and is, therefore, to be respected, but she finds Ebb depressing and weird.

Weird is almost hilarious because, in a place where the only normal people are those in charge of the kitchen, Penelope still thinks that there’s a normal and only some of us aren’t it.

She pushes herself off of the wall, snagging my shirtsleeve to make me walk at her pace, and it’s then as we amble from the dining room back to student corridors that it really feels like I’m home. I’ve missed this, missed Penelope, but before the moment can be wallowed in, she ruins it. It’s a skill of hers.

“Have you been a dick to Simon?”

“I’ve not had the chance to be. We’ve only been back a few hours, Penelope, I’ve barely spoken to Snow.”

“He’s just been…quieter than last year.”

“Give him a chance.” I feel like punctuating that with a sneer, only Penelope’s immune to that by now. I change tack, “Actually, he does seem so. Do you know why? You’ve got to know.”

“Why do I? That’s not how I work, Basilton. You know that.”

She’s huffing now, indignant, but we both know that’s a lie. It’s exactly how she works. She knew I hated the idea of my father remarrying before I did. I don’t want to argue with her, though, so I opt for the more…normal of answers. “You’re his friend?”

More huffing and I can’t help but smile. It earns me an elbow to the ribs as Penelope says, “Just…be nicer to him. And I mean nice. Not like last year.”

We’ve reached her floor and she makes for her door, leaving me stood there for a moment. “What do you mean, not like last year?”

Her door closes behind her, but I still hear her shout, “Don’t be a dick.”

**

Penelope says the exact same thing the next time I see her.

I’ve missed breakfast, heading straight for my first lesson of the day only for Penelope to already be there, a plate of toast in hand and a faint smile on her face as she holds the plate slightly out of reach and says, “Don’t be a dick, Basilton.”

“What do you have against my natural state of being this year?” I snatch a piece of toast despite her attempts and tear off the crust, inhaling half the slice before she bothers to reply.

“Baz.”

I raise my eyebrow, really just to get a rise out of her. It works, she moves to steal the other half of my toast, reaching for it when I jump up. “Nothing! I swear.”

“Is Snow under the same orders? If I’m not to be a dick, is he to be nice to me?”

It’s a stupid question, firstly because I might actually be right. The lone attempt at conversation from Snow has been disgustingly polite - even when I got back to my room, throwing the door open and collapsing on my bed without closing it, Snow nodded at me when he walked down the corridor. It’s also stupid because I know she doesn’t care that deeply, or doesn’t like to, at least. It’s a trial to Penelope having as many friends as she does, so meddling amongst us is hardly her style.

She’s saved from answering by Professor Minos’ appearance and his announcement that today we’re in the training rooms, though it’s more the arrival of the rest of our class behind him that ends the conversation than anything else. Mostly because that means Snow arrives, damp-haired and tie draped around his neck like yesterday, and I’m polite enough not to repeat the question in front of him.

The Minotaur gathers us all in training room one and it’s with a horrible, sinking feeling that I realise why we’re all here.

“Now, class,” The Minotaur begins, and I know what’s coming next. “Welcome back to field basics.”

And I’d rather be dead.

There’s a collective groan as his words sink in, coming from everyone but Snow. Snow hasn’t been here long enough to understand how boring field basics is.

We’ve learnt field basics every year since we arrived for most of us - people like Penelope, Agatha, Dev, myself, even Gareth - and that happens to mean since we were eleven. The babies now learn field basics. Not that Ebb didn’t fight to make it so they wouldn’t, but they do.

And it’s not like it’s that relevant - there are rules about under eighteens being called out. Some of us never get to go out to actual situations, anyway. Sure, some don’t want to, but sometimes we don’t get to go because we’re not really useful, like those of us who are only here because it’s a school where it’s like 90% guaranteed we won’t be outcasts — plus there’s all the safety, acceptance, special teaching bullshit.

Basically, we can all do field basics in our sleep. Coordinating with the police, trying to get civilians out of the way, when it’s a tube station — and it’s generally a tube station — keeping people away from platforms, making the site safe for medics once the random selection of adults is done.

Generally, Possibelf goes. She’s a staple, no matter what.

Salisbury is always there. He’s a lord or something, but he’s also one of us freaks so the title’s irrelevant and he’s part of the team. His mother used to fund this place — the Lady Salisbury sent both of her children here, until her daughter ran off, (that’s what Ebb says, anyway). Ebb says that she wanted to be normal or at least not to be a part of this place like everyone else — and now he does, too, but he’s. Well. He’s a bit shit at it. He’s also very shit at being good at what we’re supposed to do. Luckily, he’s literally bulletproof.

Ebb doesn’t like to go. Her brother used to, there are photos, but that’s as far as that topic goes.

The rest of the staff choose. Some of us, those who stay full time after eighteen, go too.

You don’t really need many of us for your average bank robbery or murder spree. And there’s not really many of those, not in London.

The Minotaur still makes us pair up and practise, though.

Penelope chooses Agatha, Dev gets Niall, Elspeth is practising teaching and I’m not working with Gareth. Unfortunately, that leaves Snow.

“Baz? Want to- Looks like we’re partners.” He’s just as quiet as yesterday and he looks — for theatrical purposes, I’m going to go with ‘as thrilled as I am’, but really he looks just as cagey and shifty as yesterday too.

Still, I let him set up along the back wall, ditching uniform jackets before we walk through what’s, by now, standard.

“I’m not the civilian,” I say, my arms folded as Snow looks around. “I refuse to be.”

“Well, I don’t want to be.”

“Tough. I said so first.”

“Baz.”

“Snow.”

My eyebrow raises as Snow and I glare at each other, though he caves first, huffing and standing back.

I stand up straighter, head up like it has to be when you wear the stupid suits everyone wears when they go out on a mission - the collars are tight and borderline turtle necks, so there’s no choice - and I keep my shoulders back as I walk past Snow. “Called in specialist, reporting. Sitrep?”

“One colossal twat.”

“Snow.”

“Three intruders, in masks. Terminal three has been taken over.” He sounds bored, which is good.

“Civilians?’

“All but four out of the way. Two trapped there, one taking selfies by the exit, one videoing the whole thing.”

I steer Snow in a direction away from our cones; walking even the police away is protocol. They don’t tend to like us being there, especially not when their jobs are basically being done by teenagers with one chromosome too many. (Not that that’s the real explanation for us. There’s not a gene for fire-production. I’d know.)

“Officers?”

“Two units at the scene, the rest behind the cordon. No casualties of any kind so far.”

“The rest of my team and I are going in. Coordinate with the specialist outside for comms link.”

Typically, that’s the Minotaur’s job. There’s not much he can generally do, turning yourself into livestock is certainly not normal, but not really useful against your average armed idiot. It’s going to be Penelope, in the future. Or, it should be. She’s good for Intel and basically brilliant at everything, it makes sense for it to be her role.

Getting to this point means we’re actually done with the basic walkthrough and now the drills get really interesting. Next is the injured teammate protocol, and then it’s injured civilians. Which means I’m going to have to give Snow CPR.

He realises that great, great news halfway through acting as though he’s a middle-aged woman with a broken leg and stops dead. I keep dragging him, though, the five metres of wall space that are ours have cones that we’re supposed to treat as the distance between a potential scene and a police cordon and The Minotaur is still observing.

“I’m not being the fucking civilian, Baz.” He’s adamant now, and dragging him is harder than it should be, so I stop and let him fall.

“Tough shit, Snow. I already said I wouldn’t be.”

“Then we’ll trade.” His jaw is jutting out at an obstinate angle that I know he learnt from Penelope, but we are actually supposed to assessed on this and fighting him just isn’t worth it. Plus, Penelope has been glancing at us from across the room all session, and I’m mildly afraid of what she could do to me.

“Fine, whatever. Just get up.”

I help drag him past the final cone and then walk back to the start, dropping to the floor. He runs through the spiel, introducing himself, making sure it’s safe to help, and then drops to the floor beside me. Technically, I’m supposed to be dead, unresponsive, no pulse.

His hands are clammy, which make this worse, and he’s shouting, practically. He takes my pulse, raises my arm and lets it fall, but I’m not committed enough to actually hit myself in the face. Then, he ‘radios in’ and begins CPR. Or fake CPR. He’s not actually allowed to crack my ribs put he goes through the motions, hands on my sternum and drills like we’re supposed to. He’s humming the tune to Stayin’ Alive under his breath like we were taught in last years actual CPR sessions when they broke out the dummies and had someone from the Red Cross come in.

Then, he leans over, making to pinch my nose and this is far closer to Snow than I have ever wanted to be. He fakes compressions and his forehead is wrinkled in concentration, blue eyes staring down at me and I’ve never noticed just how many freckles he has before.

Having him lean over me for much longer seems unbearable, so I sit up, choking like I’m breathing again with my eyes wide and head up, deadpan, “It’s a miracle!”

Snow leans back, glaring. “Unrealistic. Fake. Zero out of ten, Baz. CPR never works anyway.”

He helps me up, though, and we pretend to be trialling a comm failure when the Minotaur stalks past us.

The break in weirdness from him is almost nice so when he shoves past me, leaving me to tidy away our equipment at the end of class, I don’t have it in me to care.

**

Snow and I end up partnered for every training session after that.

He’s always weirdly polite, towards the start, though the same is true of every interaction we have. He stammers his way through pleasantries, tries to join in when Penelope and I bicker, and he always asks to work with me like I’m the big, bad wolf, about to bite his head off for speaking to me.

It’s actually starting to get old, but there’s no way to address it, to ask Snow what the fuck he’s doing, and so I find myself working with when training room three has been converted into a warehouse fire.

He starts with the same old, “What do you say, Baz? Team up?” And then he’s following me into a room that’s not actually a bad recreation of what Snow did to the fourth Children’s Home he blew up.

Sure, protocol here is to wear the appropriate equipment, masks, gloves, the extra boots, and use fire extinguishers to put it out. It’s the same if we were just the fire brigade, really, even though we’re not supposed to be called out for the usual tragedies. However, I’m here and fire is my thing.

I have another solution. Snow doesn’t like it. “You’re going to what? Are you insane?”

“I’m going to make the fire mine. Set a few other things on fire, let the flames mix, extinguish it all.”

“No. Don’t be a twat. Just follow the procedure.”

“My way’s better.” Sure there’s a procedure, but I’d be there for this kind of thing. They’d use me, may as well see what I can do.

“No.”

“Please?”

“No!” He throws the extinguisher at me, and I drop it. It clangs and there’s a horrible moment where I worry about pressurised carbon dioxide in a confined space, but nothing bad happens, so I raise an eyebrow and fold my arms.  
  
“Baz.”

“Snow.”

“Baz.”

“Snow.”

We’re being timed and assessed on this. I don’t particularly care, but Snow is still really a newbie and therefore has to pass every practical at least once. And he needs to pass this one. And for that, he needs me.

I can actually see him wavering, and his shoulders sag just before he relents. “You’re such a twat, Baz. Fine. Get on with it.”

“You might want to stand out of the way.”

Fire comes as easily to me as breathing, and it’s not long before everything but a small circle of concrete that Snow and I are stood in is on fire. The air is burning, I can feel the heat, but not in a way that’s unpleasant. It just feels natural. My mother used to say that summoning fire was like lighting a match inside your heart.

She wasn’t wrong, that’s how it feels for me, and it’s easy, so easy to let the flame dance, burning up every pile of logs they through in here to set the scene, charring the floor — Possibelf will be pissed, but there’s not much they can actually do — even the gym mats piled in the far corner don’t survive.

Snow’s stops behind me, and when I turn to look at him, his eyes are bright behind the mask, burning, reflecting the flames and he looks sort of amazed. Either that or he’s shitting himself.

It’s possible I went overboard on the fires, just a tad; they’re burning even without anything short of the walls for them to burn (that sometimes happens when I’m involved, they respond to me and tend to stick around) and Snow grabs my wrist. His curls are low on his forehead, escaping the seal of the mask — the heat’s work — and the bronze has been darkened to a deep brown. “Baz?”

I do have to put the flames out, that was my plan, Snow’s concern is reminder enough, but it’s easily done, even if they don’t want to be extinguished. It’s simple enough. I always imagine I’m blowing out a candle, making a wish, forcing them away.

Snow still hasn’t let go of my arm, his fingers digging into the point where I’ll have little crescent-shaped scratches, despite the layers of glove and suit, though he relaxes slightly as the fires die out. He exhales loudly, and slumps forward, leaning on my shoulder. “Bloody hell, Baz.”

“All’s well that ends well, Snow. It’s out. Problem solved.” I shove him off of me and start heading for the door, Professor Minos is there waiting, stopwatch in hand and his expression contorted into one of confusion and outrage, though technically we’ve passed.

I leave Snow with him and find Penelope. She’s not looking at me, but this is hardly surprising.

“That’s not how you’re supposed to pass.”

“Says who?”

“Basilton.”

“Penelope.”

She huffs.

“Oh, come on. I was brilliant and you know it. It worked, no fire, Snow survived. If this were real, they’d give me a medal.”

“They’d give you something alright.”

She leans into me, still scowling. Usually, I get a lecture about fairness and ‘do you understand why there’s standard procedure, Basil?’, and the answer normally comes in the form of a half hour rant, but I’d far rather take this.

Snow approaches, and she stands upright.

“I’m fine, Penny.” His voice is gruff, hair still low in his eyes. He hands me the sheet from the Minotaur and I was right. We passed. Fastest time, too. Even with the arguing.

“Told you, Snow.”

“Guess you did.” Penny’s glaring at both of us, and Snow coughs, playing with the collar of the suit they make us wear for practicals, a stripped down version of the team uniform, and he says, “That was impressive Baz. Clever. Thanks.”

It’s a weird mix of the real Snow and the polite Snow, and it’s kind of wrong. Penelope’s still glaring, though, so I shrug, and lean against the wall next to where he’s stood. “Team effort. We both passed. You heading back to your room? I’ll walk with you.”

It’s an offer he wasn’t expecting, because he blanches, and Snow’s pale enough as it is. He hums at the offer, though and nods apologetically at Penelope, before standing. The first two minutes are awkward and quiet, and then he asks, “How do you do it?”

“Do what? The fire?”

“Yeah. Makes flames appear.”

“How do you blow shit up?”

That’s the wrong thing to say because Snow’s face closes off instantly, shoulders tensing and forehead wrinkling, and I’m reminded that Snow doesn’t actually like being a human bomb. I get it, sort of, vaguely, I think, but at the same time, he asked me, so surely that goes both ways.

We’re still on the wrong side of the school, though, so I backtrack. “I don’t really know. It’s not genetic, no one’s stuff is. My mother used to say we were just able to play around with the air, just a bit. Oxygen’s flammable — we just encourage it. I like that idea. It’s better than a theory my father once looked at. Suggested I secreted petrol or magic or something and that’s what does it. Gross, no thank you.”

His face is still wrinkled up, but more in laughter now, which I’ll take. “Definitely gross. No one wants to be told they’re a human petrol pump.”

“You see my point.”

“He sounds like a barrel of laughs, your dad.”

“Mmm.” We pass Ebb and both of us nod at her, and she can only nod back, busy as she is with two of the babies. Neither one’s Elladora, but I recognise one of them from last year. Ebb is trying to shepherd them back towards their rooms, and for a brief moment, I wonder if they still have nap time.

I’d be jealous if they did. We don’t get any such breaks.

Snow and I might just have put out a fire, but I still have maths next and an essay for the English tutor they bring in.

They’re actually mandatory here, A-levels are. Penelope’s exempt, she passed them when she was nine, but for the rest of us, those with slightly less convenient superpowers, Shakespeare is still a necessary subject even when you’re almost eighteen.

Despite the fact that Snow’s room is after mine, he’s pulling his shirt over his head before he ducks inside, stripping at the same time as opening his door, and I catch a glimpse of his back, all pale skin, moles and muscles, just as the shirt hits the floor and I have to tell myself to look away.

The fact that it’s Snow, Simon bloody Snow, that I’m staring at hits me, and I bang my head against the wall.

**

Snow’s almost back to normal by the time we get called up.

It’s unusual, Penny, Snow, Niall and I all getting suits thrown at us and asked to help. They don’t use us under eighteen, but apparently, they need us. Either that or the other adults just don’t want to go.

Possibelf rounds us up, Snow and I from maths, Penelope from her study, and Niall from a remedial science, and she herds us all into the garage, where students aren’t allowed on pain of death or banishment to another dimension, and she asks if we’re willing/able/not scared to join them in the big leagues.

There’s obviously only one answer, and then black uniform jumpsuits are being hurled our way, with comms devices, the proper boots and ID badges.

Then she points us to the Range Rover, tells us to get in, and next thing I know, I’m standing the opposite side of a cordon to the crowd of tourists and listening as a police officer tells Possibelf and me, “Armed mob, six went in, but there could have been more already present. Evacuated as many as we could, but the markets were busy, could be more. Weapons are nothing we’ve ever seen.”

Possibelf sends me over to Penelope and The Minotaur, sticking me in a role that doesn’t generally exist, coordinating between her team and comms and Intel when generally comms coordinate directly. When I get there, Minos and Penelope are already plugged into the CCTV and Penelope instantly begins. “There’s nine of them. Four tourists inside, one of whom isn’t even aware of what’s going on, plus one is a child.”

Professor Minos looks mildly put out, but he’s able to turn himself into livestock and Penelope’s a literal genius or maybe even more, so her besting him already is hardly a surprise. I nod and relay that Intel over comms, to which Niall and Snow both remember to reply.

Niall’s being sent in first, which seems wrong given that we don’t ever get to do this, but then again he can resist his own shower water if he wants, a bullet or whatever such weapons they’ve got is probably not going to hurt him. He sounds confident enough, his voice doesn’t shake as he speaks over comm lines. “Acknowledged. Visual on two targets. Ski masks, body armour and glowing spears.”

The way he speaks, he could be talking about the lunch menu, not a freak takeover of the Camden Markets, and I almost smile. We’re not supposed to, though. It can be misconstrued by civilians and then there’s PR shit storms about us enjoying terror and it’s not really worth it.

There’s shouting as they see Niall appear, I presume, and Possibelf and Salisbury chatter over comms, providing back up, and then Snow pipes, hearing footsteps racing towards him. “My direction. At least two. Reasonable force?”

“Negative. Block their path, don’t face them head-on.” Possibelf apparently sounds the same, no matter where she is. Her classroom voice is the same as her field tone, even as there’s the sound of a blade swinging through the air.

“Acknowledged.” Snow sounds like he’s frowning and, already, Penelope and I are urging people back, followed by the Minotaur, even before the first telltale rumble can be heard.

“Bet you Snow blew up the building.”

She scowls at me, but it’s more of Penelope’s ‘you’re betting me?’ scowl than a ‘here? Really?’ scowl, so I’m probably in the clear.

Then there’s smoke and coughing over comms and Snow says, “Path blocked.”

It’s not long until I get the signal from Possibelf to start sending the police in to formalise arrests, and the cordon gets shifted back another twenty feet, mostly so the crowd aren’t close enough to see the identities of the people being led out of the building.

True to Penelope’s word, nine people are escorted out of the building by the police, and then the four tourists just after them. One is still clutching a bag of shopping. The child Penelope warned of has a police officer’s hand on his shoulder but he looks- Unbothered by everything.

Penelope gasps over comms, but I don’t get the chance to ask why. Possibelf’s voice breaks the silence over comms, and I barely listen, instead watching The Boy as he shuffles away. They look familiar, and for a moment I think we’re going to have a film worthy moment where the kid’s revealed to be one of us, another Simon Snow moment, but of course not. He slouches, hangs his head and slopes under the cordon, one step too many ahead of the officers for them to be escorting him.

Before I can really stare, or turn coordinating into a chance to find out more, Salisbury emerges into the market courtyards, the others not far behind him.

Possibelf has a hand on Niall’s shoulder, and he’s pale, but that’s understandable. Snow’s limping behind them, and paramedics dive on him before Possibelf or Salisbury can stop them. I get a nod of approval from Possibelf, Penelope is helping the Minotaur with equipment and Snow is still protesting the ministrations of the ambulance crew.

For lack of anything else to do, apart from hovering awkwardly around Penelope, I join Snow, smirking as they drape a foil blanket around him. When the paramedic asking about his knee disappears back into the ambulance, I hold my hand, conjuring up a flame. “Cold?”

“‘M fine.”

“Sure you are.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Sure it is.”

“A bit of wall fell on me, that’s all.” His head falls forward, and he slouches, hiding his face.

I can’t help myself, not in the light of that revelation and I sneer. “Now you know how it feels.”

“What?” Snow sounds genuinely confused, and the paramedic returns before I can remind him.

“It’s nothing.” I extinguish the flame and drop into the spot next to Snow, tapping my foot against his shin to get him to wince. When he elbows me in revenge, I smile up at the man trying to assess his vitals. “Check his leg out. He’s probably fractured a bone.”

“Traitor.”

I elbow him, and for a moment it feels like normal, except Snow and I have never been this normal. I’m blaming it on his unnatural politeness and Penelope’s insistence that I behave. There’s no other explanation for it.

Later, much later — after clean up is over and Snow’s back from the hospital wing, wearing a walking cast as he hobbles into the games room where we’re all slumped, taking over the only comfortable seats — Agatha sits up, head tilted to one side as she says, “So, I was thinking. First ever call out, today. Something for the history books. We should do something. Something to celebrate. You guys are part of their team, now.”

I’m already shaking my head, Penelope snorting derisively when Snow speaks up. “Like what? Drinks?”

**

Drinks are a bad idea.

For starters, most of us aren’t quite eighteen and therefore not actually allowed to buy alcohol. Secondly, we’re not really allowed out of the school buildings, not without prior permission. Also, if caught, we’re more likely to be arrested and kicked out than normal teenagers. And I don’t feel like sharing a cell with Snow tonight.

None of that matters, though, because Agatha agrees with Snow, bullies the rest of us into agreeing and manages to hustle us all into fetching jackets, and then we’re climbing down the fire escape and out of the building.

It’s highly possible that we’re all wrong when we say Agatha’s thing is super speed. She might actually have mind control, using it on us to get her own way.

We’re out, Snow’s still hobbling, and Penelope ends up choosing the pub because Agatha wants to go to Soho, I don’t want to go anywhere and Snow still doesn’t know London. Dev and Niall don’t get a say. This means we end up in a Wetherspoons, tucked into a corner with sticky tables and cheap pints of cider for all of us except Agatha.

She’s chosen a pink drink that smells like sugar and seems to have at least four times the alcohol content if the way she’s grinning is anything to go by.

By the time Agatha is on her fourth drink, Penelope has given up telling her that she’ll be hungover for three days and is ignoring all of us for messaging Micah. Micah is a nice normal boy, who happens to be able to summon horrible monsters from a different dimension.

He doesn’t attend Watford — he’s homeschooled in America — but his family are rich enough and important enough that he’s been introduced to us, waving the general ‘no minors’ rule and helping Possibelf and the others once or twice. Penelope was able to recite everything about him off the top of her head before she’d even shaken his hand and he asked her out there and then.

Penelope’s texting him, but it’s not really texting. She knows everything he’s going to say before he says it, so really she’s just texting him and skipping any physical version of his replies.

This means that Agatha is encouraging Dev to turn himself invisible and move the furniture, Niall is trying to flirt with the girl behind the bar, Snow is sulking and I’m the last one with any money to get us a taxi back to school. At least, I could use the money to get us a taxi. I end up actually spending it on another round of drinks, roping Snow into helping me carry them.

Snow has, unfortunately, somehow, reverted back to the weirdly polite version Snow that walks on eggshells around me, which means when I summon him to help, he stammers, “Wh- What? Me?”

“Who else? Unless there’s another Simon Snow around here capable of carrying a pint?”

He’s slightly slow on his feet, given that he’s in a walking cast for his leg, but he comes up, standing next to me while we wait for the girl to escape Niall’s pick up lines, staring at me when he thinks I’m not looking.

Another minute more of Snow opening and then closing his mouth moronically is enough for me to snap. “What is it? For the love of all things fucking holy, Snow, what is it?”

His forehead creases into a look of confusion and it’s so, so tempting to kick him in the shin.

“You’re gaping, Snow. Why? Have I grown horns?”

“You’re- Baz, you’re wearing jeans.” Snow’s face is as red as Penelope’s hair, and he hangs his head, suddenly no longer capable of even looking at me. The possible implications of this are endless and mildly horrifying.

The girl appears before I can say anything and it takes me a moment before I manage to croak, “Five ciders - No, four, and two- Two of those, pink things? Please.”

We’re left alone again while she pulls the pints of cider and sorts out the cocktails, and I force myself to look at Snow. “What the hell, Snow?”

“You never- You’re always- They look-“ Snow’s stammers for another few seconds before he stops making any sound and I have to refrain from repeating myself. Mercifully, our drinks are ready, and I leave Snow with the two pink monstrosities, carrying the rest to the table as Snow follows me, dropping into my seat before snatching one from Snow.

Agatha was right in her choice — it’s disgusting and sweet and it burns as I throw back a mouthful.

The others are still bickering and flirting but wander over for their drinks. Dev’s whole arm is gone and it’s like we’re thirteen again, revelling in how cool a glass floating through the air looks like. That’s a bit harsh actually. It still looks incredibly cool, but it’s also very conspicuous, so I turn my sneer towards him.

It doesn’t work very well.

Dev’s immune to it by now, like Penelope, and that’s partially why he shrugs, unbothered, but also, his mother is exceptionally liberal and goes to all the marches and protests that people who don’t actually have to live with being not-normal like to hold. He’s smirking, voice slurring form the drink, just a bit, as he teases, “Pride, Baz. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with who we are.”

Snow stiffens in his seat as Dev speaks, but I’m ignoring him.

“Fuck off, you tosser.” I shove the tray with his drink towards him, but there’s not enough heat behind the words to give the desired effect.

Niall takes his and wanders back to the bar, Dev takes Agatha’s with him for her and Penelope turns hers down, still focused on her phone, leaving just Snow and I. He’s still doing a passable impression of someone who wants to die, and I still have half a glass of pink hell left, so silence reigns until Penelope finishes the non-conversation with Micah, and gives my drink a derisive look. “Really, Basilton?”

“You sound like my aunt.”

She looks further unimpressed with that comparison, though I’m right — Fiona is as equally derisive about everything — and I stare back, meeting her look of derision with one of my own. “Really, Penelope. I’ll deny it if she asks, but Agatha is on to something.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to deny anything after you’ve finished it.” Her scowl softens and she leans towards me, poking me in the knee. “You’re going to be so hungover tomorrow. I can’t wait.”

I stick my tongue out at her, making her laugh and it’s nice, and it makes Snow roll his eyes. Penelope pokes me again and steals my drink, wincing at the taste. “Christ, Basil, it’s like drinking paint thinner.”

“Shouldn’t you have known that?” I’m on the verge of laughing at her, and she pokes me again, handing the drink back. “Finish that, if you can. You’ll need to be quick. Possibelf will have stopped indulging our absence soon, so we’ll need to be back before they find us here. Tell the others.”

“You tell them.”

“You tell them. I told you, that should be enough.”

“Penelope.”

“Basilton.”

“Bunce.”

“Pitch.”

“Oh, fucking hell, you two. I’ll tell them.” Snow slams his glass down and Bunce raises an eyebrow, though she’s never actually surprised.

Getting everyone out of the pub is a challenge; Niall has to be pried away from the girl who looks like she’s willing to stab him — he’s immune to rejection, too — Agatha needs the loo, Dev wants to walk home invisible and Snow is slower than all of us with his cast.

Penelope is done with all of us now, exhausted by the ordeal of having to care about so many people for one evening, and is leading the way, Dev is who knows where, and Niall and Agatha are together, so it’s really with no choice that I fall back to walk with Snow.

His face is all screwed up, so I guess that however much he’s had to drink isn’t doing anything to help with the fact he’s got a hairline fracture, and he looks like he’s trying not to swear.

If anyone ever asks about this, I’ll blame it on the alcohol, but I wrap my arm around him, supporting his weight on his injured side and he’s so surprised that he lets me. We’re twenty minute’s stagger from Watford when he asks, “How did you know you were gay?”

“Excuse me?” My voice comes out higher than I intended, and I’m not quite sure why it sounds like a protest. Well, maybe I do, it’s not like he’s asked the wrong thing, but I didn’t know he knew that.

Maybe I should reevaluate the list of people who know. Penelope is a no brainer, always has been. Ebb doesn’t count. But the others. From now on, I’m just going to assume everyone knows.

Fuck.

“How did you know you were gay?” He repeats himself — it’s honestly like Snow’s never heard of a rhetorical question — and I’m tempted to drop him.

I don’t, of course, I don’t — Penelope’s wrath is real and worth fearing, and her determination — but it’s close. The fact that keeps me by Snow’s side is that he’s drunk, maybe less so than I, but still drunk, and therefore not really responsible for anything coming out of his mouth.

“Why do you want to know?”

The look Snow gives me is a close enough copy of those he’s normally on the receiving end of.

It makes me stop dead, though, because the answer I’m supposed to assume is not one I really saw coming. Everything is beginning to make sense, though. All the weirdness and politeness. Like at the Welcome Back dinner.

Snow lurches forwards a step without my assistance before stopping, and when I sneak a glance at him, his face is bright red, again.

“Shit,” I say, long and drawn out, and Snow nods.

We start walking again, further behind the others than I’d like to be, but that at least means there’s no one else around to hear as I answer Snow’s question.

“I just did, Snow. I just do.” We’re back in quieter side streets of Hammersmith, not too much further from Watford, and Snow’s starting to become a dead weight. “It’s not always so clear, for everyone. But- If you’re thinking you might be attracted to boys, you probably are.”

“Did you- Was it, easy, for you?”

“Christ, Snow,” These are questions I’ve never been asked before, never thought about before. I answer, though, because I’m tired and drunk and stupid and Snow is too. “There was a time when I didn’t want to be. Fifteen, thought I could pretend otherwise by dating Agatha. It wasn’t enough that I was a freak, now I had to be gay. That was a while ago, though. I went to Pride last year.”

Snow’s frowning again but I don’t want to know why just in case he’s taking my stupid teenage angst to heart. Maybe, hopefully, he’s just confused about Pride.

Watford comes into view and I’ve never been so happy to see it, not even at the end of summer. It’s hard to miss, clock tower and engraved brickwork, all Victorian and Penelope is almost at the doors.

Dev has shown back up and Agatha’s helping Niall up the stairs and they’re waiting for us, though Snow is slower than ever now and silent.

When he does speak, it’s yet another question I’m not expecting.

“Have you ever kissed someone?” His teeth are gritted as he speaks, forehead still wrinkled and hair hanging into his eyes.

I jolt him on purpose. “No.”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to?” He punctuates the question with a grunt as his foot bounces awkwardly along the pavement.

Snow’s grip on me is tighter and I almost feel bad for making his leg worse, but then I look at him. His eyes are bright, more focused than he’s been since the first drink, and a hot flash of anger shoots up my spine. “Sure I have.”

That’s a lie, I think.

We’re close enough to the building now that all that’s left to do is drag him up the steps. I do, and then I leave him with Penelope, really just dumping him at her feet.

It’s not really wise, his room is next to mine and it feels too shitty to make Penelope go out of her way to deal with him, so I stalk back, taking Snow’s weight once more and heading for the staircase, ignoring the look Penelope shoots us.

Because Snow doesn’t seem to notice the hole he’s digging for himself, he asks, “If you wanted to, why haven’t you kissed anyone?”

My lie feels heavy on my tongue and I don’t know what to say. Instead, I focus on heaving Snow upstairs, the weight of his shoulder on mine, the steady clunk of his cast in the steps. He’s so fucking heavy and he’s warm, too. Unbearably so, but his grip on me is like a vice and it’s only one corridor until I shove him towards his door, opening mine and slamming it.

All I can taste is sugar and vodka, and I stare into the mirror as I clean my teeth, though coordination is a challenge and smear toothpaste down my hand.

I’m never telling Snow this, but there’s never been anyone I’ve wanted to kiss. Not really. Not Agatha or any of the boys from Pride, no one.

Except-

No.

Snow can go fuck himself.

**

Lessons the next day are interesting.

Agatha wears her sunglasses. No one sees Dev all day. Niall tells the story of the bartender but changes the ending to fit the fake phone number he’s showing around. Penelope ignores all of us, and Snow is back to being quiet and weird.

I keep my head down, focusing on anything other than Snow and his damp bronze curls and loose tie all day, managing not to look at him once. Not that such a thing takes much effort.

It’s easy to ignore Snow, I’ve had two years practise and, anyway, last night involved copious amounts of alcohol, meaning everything that may or may not have been said is irrelevant. Therefore, by extension, Snow is irrelevant.

By dinner, Agatha is suitably recovered to remove the glasses, and Penelope has thawed enough that she’s speaking to me again.

Admittedly, she’s only interested in the field report I’ve not yet submitted, but it’s at least something. To be honest, the iciness isn’t unexpected, but I’m not quite sure why she’s spent the day acting like putting up with us is a chore. Probably it’s because it is. Because we were all being weird and normal last night. Or, maybe, it’s because I was a dick to Snow, sort of.

Whatever.

Now, she’s bright-eyed and interested, asking, “When are you submitting yours? Possibelf wants them soon as.”

Because I’ve known Penelope for years, and I know that it bores her, asking questions she already knows the answers to, I don’t go with the exact truth, that I’m planning on writing it later and handing it in before breakfast tomorrow. “Whenever it’s done. It’s just a field report, can’t be that hard to finish.”

Her mouth quirks up on one side, the only acknowledgement these things ever get. Agatha contributes by clanking her cutlery, pushing the mashed potato around on her plate and wincing at the noise.

When she’s finished, I look back at Penelope, teasing, “Let me guess, yours is signed, dated and already filed with the security council?”

“Not quite that far. Lord Salisbury reads them, then his mother, then the council.” She sticks her tongue out at me, though she’s not kidding. It’s typical Penelope.

Agatha glares at both of us and slides her sunglasses back up her nose.

**

I was wrong about field reports.

Well, wrong when I lied to Penelope. I write it, more or less, and handing it in is no problem. The first report is no problem whatsoever, all the details are easy enough, my role was minimal enough that there’s no other after action for me to fill out, and it’s easy enough to finish it and forget.

The next three aren’t so easy.

Firstly, because I have three to write, in the space of two weeks, and they get progressively longer and harder to fill out. Next, because I don’t know how to fill them in, not without sounding like a paranoid or overeager kid. Lastly, because I break three fingers in my right hand on the second call out, which sort of fucks the whole writing thing.

We’re all called out again, the first time. Agatha replaces Snow because he’s still in a cast and seventeen-year-olds aren’t supposed to be out anyway and, whilst he’s still useful, it doesn’t look good if they’re dragging an injured child around as part of a superhero team.

Agatha gets her first proper uniform, complete with utility pockets and matching hair bands, and sits next to me on the ride out.

It’s a bank robbery, still not high stakes, but there’s a lot of them and SWAT are already out, so we get the call.

The police aren’t thrilled to see us, and when I step up to the officer in charge, her face falls. She sounds surly as she walks me through it. “Fifteen of them, hostage situation. Walked in at ten-fifteen and shot the manager, reports of a bomb though they’re unsubstantiated as of now. Twenty civilians, one officer in negotiating, CCTV pulled suggests they’re armed to the teeth, and that there are three children in there being held separately. All other exits are blocked, no activity on the upper floors.”

Penelope gets given intel, with Professor Minos — still wholly human in form — working with her, Possibelf has already designated me as coordinator, Niall goes in openly, Dev is sent in as stealth and Agatha is running laps of the perimeter, so fast I can’t track her.

Her presence doesn’t seem warranted, not for something as simple as this, but I don’t think I’m supposed to question tactical decisions. Not yet, at least. Instead, I keep all the officers back from the line, shield Penelope and the Minotaur from the crowd and relay Penelope’s stream of updates inside.

Dev doesn’t answer, Niall whispers, all surety is gone from his voice, and Possibelf gives a standard, “Acknowledged.”

The difference between Possibelf now and when she’s teaching is astounding. It’s understandable, but I first met her age eleven and she was a soft-spoken, slightly stern but kind lady who wears her glasses in her hair and handed out tissues.

Here, she’s terrifying and professional, abrupt even though she somehow sounds the same, and she looked like steel when she disappeared up to the roof. She did literally fly up there, but less like a fairy and more like a pissed off wasp.

A pissed off wasp with a job to do, who needs me to do mine, though, all told, there’s not much for me to do given that nothing about this so far — except for the fact that, yet again, they’ve opted for bringing out a bunch of teenagers instead of the fully trained and experienced adults — seems out of the usual.

Dev finds that the bomb is a cleverly designed empty case that would have been used to smuggle out the money, no real threat at all and he then begins slowly moving the hostages towards the door, Niall’s immunity to everything extends to the hands of someone trying to kill him, Possibelf leads the arrests whilst Salisbury looks pretty and the police finish the job. Penelope knows who every single person involved is, though that’s apparently due to the computer chip she fused herself with, not her general omniscience. (I’m not convinced).

Agatha removes the children from inside the cordon the instant they set one foot out of the door, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it style, leaving them with the police behind the cordon. That’s when I notice one of the children she’s pulling away.

It’s the same boy from the first call out, I’m sure of it. Looks like he’s old enough to resent being called a child but clearly still one, despite the fact that he‘s sloping away from the cordon into the crowd, ducking away from the paramedics, head down and stumbling on the hem of his grotty jeans.

Before I can report this over comms, there’s a gunshot. I hear it both through my earpiece and as it rings out from the building.

Agatha’s inside the building before anyone can stop her, despite the fact that this is not protocol, with Possibelf on her heels, and the silence that follows has me barking out, “Wellbelove! Report!”

“It’s Dev.” Agatha actually sounds out of breath when she speaks, and the break in the protocol for identities over comms doesn’t earn her a reprimand from Possibelf. That’s how I know it must be bad.

“Sitrep, Wellbelove.”

I can’t do anything if she doesn’t tell me.

It’s Possibelf who answers. “He’s been shot. By an officer. Wellbelove has him. I’m detaining the officer.”

I give the nod for medics to be sent in then and find Niall, who’s swearing loudly and demanding that Penelope shows him the CCTV.

Penelope features are drawn, and she ignores the Minotaur and his suggestion that we don’t, showing us the footage, sounding hollow as she narrates, “Dev finishes his final sweep of the building and ghosts in, appearing just before the staff exit on the main floor. Officer Myers — the woman on the right — is surprised by Dev and discharges her firearm.”

Minos closes the screen before we can watch what’s happening now and Niall swears again.

Minos becomes our professor again, taking my earpiece and leaving us gathered around his and Penelope’s equipment as he deals with the police officer I spoke with earlier. He meets Possibelf as she emerges with the woman who shot Dev and points to us when the paramedics emerge with Dev on a stretcher. Salisbury goes with Dev in the ambulance and the rest of us — Penelope, Agatha, Niall and I — are shooed into a vehicle by Possibelf.

We don’t get to race through the London traffic this time, so the journey back to Watford is much longer and is mostly silent until Possibelf speaks, sounding like Professor Possibelf rather than a field commander. “Dev will be fine. The bullet entered his shoulder, avoided any major arteries. He’ll be in surgery now, his parents have been called.”

We’re all still quiet until Penelope speaks up. “His surgeon’s good. Low patient mortality rate. And Dev’s x-rays show it to be mostly tissue damage.”

The tilt of her head suggests she’s been hacking NHS servers, possible thanks to the upgrades she gave herself, and Possibelf’s eyebrows raise in the rearview mirror. She doesn’t say anything, but neither does anyone else, and we arrive back at Watford in silence.

**

That first field report, or technically second, is difficult to write.

I end up writing mine at the same time as Penelope writes hers and they turn out almost word for word identical.

The second report I don’t exactly write. My hand’s fucked up, which is a valid reason if there is ever one, and I’m still struggling to figure out how I should phrase what I actually did.

**

It’s just me that’s taken along, the next time. It’s only four days after the bank, really three and a half; Lord Salisbury knocks on my door at three am, doesn’t wait for an answer, throws the door open and a uniform at me.

He doesn’t even bat an eye when I mumble, “Fuck off,” at him into my pillow.

“Mr Pitch. Your assistance is required. You have five minutes to be in the garage.” He turns my lights on and heads for the door, leaving just as Snow pokes his head around the door, barely awake. “‘S going on?”

“Nothing concerning you, Mr Snow. Mr Pitch, you have four minutes.”

By the time three minutes have passed, I’m zipped into the suit and stumbling towards the garage, and I manage to catch up to one of the art teachers who’s headed the same way. I’ve never been taught by Professor Holloway but I know him, sort of. He was in charge of the corridor Penelope and I roomed on when we thirteen and used to frequently drag us in off the fire escape.

He looks as exhausted as I am, but also confused to see me, like he’s not sure why I’m heading down to the garage.

That’s a mutual feeling, but I don’t ask and neither does he. He holds the door to the garage open for me and tosses a bottle of water at me and a protein bar, and then Possibelf is by my side, ushering me into Range Rover.

It takes me another ten minutes to wake up enough to realise that we’re heading further out of London, being driven at speeds that generally result in a ticket. Possibelf’s in the front seat, Salisbury’s driving. Holloway's in another car, and there’s one of last year’s leavers sitting next to me. Elspeth has never really spoken to me, but she’s always seemed vaguely nice.

Another ten minutes has me voicing the question Professor Holloway didn’t ask. “Not that I’m complaining, but why am I here?”

“What do you mean, Basilton?” Possibelf answers and she’s still Professor Possibelf, but that’s hardly a useful response.

“I’m not eighteen. There’s a whole school full of adults who could be here. I thought you had a whole ‘no minors’ thing?”

Elspeth snorts quietly, and I raise an eyebrow. Salisbury’s the one to answer me. “Gotta break you all in. And not everyone wants to. It’s not forced.”

“Bullshit.” It slips out before I can stop it. “You woke me up, threw the suit at me and now I’m here.”

Another snort from Elspeth.

“Your skills are needed today.” Possibelf has slipped into the curt tone she uses in the classroom, the one she usually breaks out when we’re being particularly obtuse.

“Oh.” Her tone is fitting, but it doesn’t stop me asking, “There’s a fire?”

“Of sorts.”

That’s the sort of answer that is never good, so I slump back again the seat and look back at my protein bar. I have questions, ones that should probably go unanswered but they’re questions and I still want to know. “Do I get specifics? Is this a Snow-like situation? Or a house fire? Or something in-between?”

“None of the above.”

That’s reassuring.

This time, I fall silent and remain so until we’re pulling into a suburb of Essex, where the night sky is full of smoke and a faint orange glow and I can feel the fire from streets away. I’m out of the car before anyone else and Salisbury hurries after me, one hand on my arm to keep me in line as Possibelf begins coordinating with the people on the scene.

It doesn’t take more than one quick look for me to realise why I’m here; everything is burning. What’s supposed to be a warehouse is one massive flame, the cordon keeping everyone back is at least a hundred feet away. There’re people gathered around, standing in front of houses in dressing gowns and coats. It’s spreading, too. Trees are burning, a car is a blackened hulk, and the firefighters aren’t really making progress.

Why we were called in, I’m still not sure. It’s bad, sure, but not a crime. Not drastic. Not worthy of bulletproof people, people who can fly, Holloway’s brand of insanity and Elspeth’s ability to literally vanish. Not in Dev’s invisibility party trick way, but literally on the molecular level. She can blink herself in and out of existence, and anyone she touches.

They lost her for a whole summer once, when she was learning. The staff searched and had to wait for her to just. Return. And she did, eventually. Thinking about it too much makes my head hurt.

What we’re all doing here makes no sense until my earpiece crackles and I hear the report Possibelf’s relaying. “Three people inside. One night guard. One child. And the culprit who set the fire.”

Ah. Anyone who can cause this is, perhaps, in our league.

Elspeth’s present makes sense, too. The gear us both up, masks, reinforced boots, gloves and then she puts her hand on my shoulder. “Ready?”

“For what?” Before I get an answer, I’m gone.

Then I’m standing inside the building, surrounded by fire, Elspeth next to me and I just blink. “Did you just- I didn’t- Is that-“

She nods and, underneath the mask, I’d swear she’s smiling just a bit.

Then I remember the fire and that I’m somewhere inside a burning building and the earpiece crackles with Possibelf instructing me to begin.

In theory, I know what I’m doing. I’ve done it before, in training and drills. Just not to this extent. I rip the mask off and survey the scene, and Elspeth’s eyes widen comically behind her mask. Here’s the thing, whilst I wear the equipment in training and drills and listen to safety protocols for everything they try and drum into us, when it comes to fire, I don’t need it.

Sure, I’m flammable. Everything is flammable, but it doesn’t hurt, to be around fire like this. I can touch it, casually, and I’m fine. Smoke doesn’t bother me, the heat’s the only real problem, but that takes a while anyway.

Elspeth’s still shitting herself and I hear her rat me out over comms, but I haven’t got time to explain it to her.

I pull off my gloves as well and let a flame appear in my palm. It’s tiny, a lick of fire around my fingers, nothing compared to the haze of fire, but it should work. I just have to make the fire mine.

Well. Control the fire, put it out, find the security guard, who’s locked in a cupboard down one of the flaming corridors, let Elspeth deal with the person responsible, and deal with the child. That’s all.

I’m always reminded of my mother, lighting a flame, and this time’s no different. Lighting the match is easy, but then getting the flames to obey isn’t. I’ve never actually attempted something of this size, and Possibelf’s voice is in my ear, “Soon, Pitch, please.”

I grit my teeth and concentrate and will the fires down. It’s like making a wish over and over again in my head, imaging then growing smaller and smaller. My mother once read me the passage from Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland of Alice shrinking, smaller and smaller until she was the size of a thimble, and it’s always helped to picture that, to see the flames tumbling down around me.

The fire does begin to die out, burning at floor level now, leaving smoke in the air and exposing the charred remains of the building. It seems that Elspeth brought us to what must have been the main floor, there’s twisted chunks of metal and blackened windows, and the fires that are still burning provide just enough light to see corridors.

Being able to see now means we’ve got to find the security guard and the child that are in here. I’m not convinced anyone will be alive, let alone a child and, what in the name of shit is a child doing here?

I ask over comms as Elspeth leads the way, but all I get is a reprimand from Salisbury. “Protocol, Pitch. Silence unless you have updates of importance.”

The corridors are dark and full of smoke and I light a flame in my hands to see before Elspeth can pull a utility torch from her pockets. It earns me a roll of her eyes, but she doesn’t complain any further, and we track halfway through the remnants of the building until we find a relatively undamaged corridor with doors that are still their original varnished colour.

Elspeth rattles the handles of each door until we reach one where someone begins hammering on the wood in response and, instead of just reappearing on the other side as I expect, Elspeth breaks the door down.

The guard is soot-covered and terrified but when he sees us, he manages something resembling dignity and allows Elspeth to take him away. It’s a slight breach in protocol, leaving me alone, but she returns with Holloway in tow so it barely counts and we continue to search.

“Where would a kid be that they’d survive?” Holloway muses, not hampered by the mask or suit at all, and I respond, “Who says they’re alive?” before I can help it.

We carry on, though, and Elspeth runs up a flight of stairs that I wouldn’t have trusted before we can stop her, though her shouts of, “I see something!” mean Holloway doesn’t protest.

The stairs give out dust and creak at her weight and then she’s dropping down a whole flight with the child we’re looking for and I swear my heart nearly stops when I see them.

It’s the boy. The Boy, from the bank and the markets.

He’s filthy and unresponsive and Elspeth just vanishes with him, leaving Holloway and me alone. Before I can say anything, Holloway mutters, “Two down, one to go. Come along, Pitch.”

He cocks his head and heads towards the part of the building we haven’t gotten to yet. As we search, he asks, “If you were going to burn down a building, where would you start the fire?”

“That’s easy. The basement. Destabilise the foundations, get the fire uncontainable before anyone even realises.” My answer is automatic, which is weird because I’ve never actually thought about a career in arson before, though Holloway merely nods. “To the basement, we go.”

It’s the right choice because the destruction is worse down here. I’m not entirely sure we should be here, it doesn’t seem safe, but Holloway has years more experience in this and I want to meet someone who can do something like this so I follow him anyway.

I keep the flame in my hand alight as Holloway leads me through the melted remains of a door and down some stairs that are thankfully concrete and therefore seem marginally safer.

Marginally, because Holloway slips twice, but he sort of recovers before he’s even fallen and I make a mental note to remember what his deal is. We get down there, though, and I think the person who set it’s still there, there’s a sold silhouette viable through the smoke and the sight of them makes Holloway remember that I’m a student, not a hero, because he says, “Wait here, Pitch. Our friend doesn’t need to deal with you.”

The figure snorts at the comment and I get it. It’s cliche, the indirectness, but Holloway doesn’t care, just crosses the room and I have to increase the size of the flame in my hand to keep a visual on him. The figure meets him halfway and just punches him, straight away, aiming for his stomach. Holloway sort of...absorbs it, though, and hits him back, aiming for the face.

He might as well have not bothered, the figure ploughs past, but Holloway tackles him, a mad rush of movement and then they’re both tumbling down and maybe I should be doing something.

What, I don’t know. I’m not trained for this. Combat training isn’t our thing. We’re not the ones called in for brute force. Self-defence, yes. We’re freaks, people don’t like us always. Karate was a thing, and other martial arts but that’s. I don’t even know.

Shit, I wish Snow was here. He’d do something at least. I can just set them on fire, but that’s not great for Holloway and I have a feeling that the man he’s wrestling with wouldn’t be bothered at all. Penelope would have intel, advice, but comms are silent, Possibelf had shouted for a sitrep but Holloway had declined to obey and Elspeth hasn’t reappeared.

Holloway is losing his impromptu wrestling match and the figure, it’s a man, the sound of his voice is a giveaway, is making for me and I just sort of- Set myself on fire.

I’ve never done this before, the fire. It’s normally localised to my hands, but I’m on fire, and it doesn’t stop him at all. He’s impressed though, stopping for the briefest of seconds before bringing his own flames. Holloway’s back up, though, but he’s still not fireproof and this is the moment where I’d like to know what the fuck to do.

He’s the person who’s set this. Fire’s his thing, but it’s also mine and he’s dangerous. Dangerous right now and I can stop that. I throw myself towards him like I’m about to punch him — I do, a bit and my whole hand crunches — but it’s just enough that fire merges and it’s mine now, I can feel it responding to me. I will it out, all of it, permanently, like he’s been dropped into an ocean.

It works and he staggers, and Holloway grabs, sweeps his feet out from under him and pulls restraints out of his uniform with one hand and throws them to me.

The man’s in shock, almost. It seems like that, like he can’t figure out what I did, which is weird. Anyone capable of starting fires like this one should be powerful enough to do what I did or even undo it, and it seems like there is so much more to this.

I get him restrained though, and then Holloway shouts, “Now!” And Elspeth appears, grabs hold of Holloway and I and all four of us blink out of existence, reappearing in front of the cordon, under Possibelf’s steady gaze.

Holloway and Elspeth take the man away, though there’s no fight from him now. I’m putting it down to Elspeth having just broken him down to molecules and reassembled him. It is terrifying, and I’m going to give Penelope hell for not having forewarned me of this. Sure, she’s doesn’t tell the future, though she does but doesn’t — it’s hard to describe how she really works — but she had to have known enough.

I’m still half-kneeling as I was when we cuffed the man, and I stand up slowly, stiffly. Possibelf surveys me coolly and I can only wonder what I look like. Sure, I’m not burnt, but I’ve still got to be covered in soot and scuffled from Holloway’s basement venture. My suit- The suits are fireproof, in the way that they’re nearly everything proof, but that’s to an extent and I set my self on fire.

I’m only slightly singed, thank fuck. Worse than Elspeth or Holloway, not so much that my underwear would be visible.

I’m still a sight, though, and one glance at my hand makes me wince.

“Paramedics, Pitch.” Possibelf makes it sound like an order, and I obey. It’s as she’s walking me towards the nearest ambulance that I ask, “What happened to The boy?”

“The boy?”

“The kid, the one Elspeth pulled from the warehouse?”

Possibelf is frowning at me and for a moment I’m concerned that I might have gone mad, but her look is one of equal bewilderment. It’s with a start that I realise she doesn’t know, that the boy’s gone, again, and to prove that, the paramedics aren’t treating him, even if they have the security guard and the culprit we apprehend. They also have me. Well, my broken hand.

I have a fissure in my knuckle and three broken fingers.

Holloway sits next to me after a while, mask off, though he doesn’t speak to me as he submits to the efforts of the paramedics. I don’t see why he needs their checks, there’s no smoke inhalation risk, and Holloway has…whatever working for him.

I refuse to let them take to a hospital, I don’t see the point. I know what I’ve done, they can tell easily enough, though they frame it as a best guess, and that’s good enough. There’s a hospital wing at Watford and I just want to go home.

I don’t ask about the kid again, Possibelf’s got to be doing something about it, and I don’t speak on the journey back apart from to ask Elspeth why we’re driving when she could unmake and make us again in an instant, appearing straight at Watford.

Her answer isn’t unexpected. “Because, shut up, Pitch. Why do you use central heating?”

**

The hospital wing is surprising crowded when we get back. Snow’s got an appointment to check over his leg and is sitting on a bed, looking sullen. Dev’s there, in a bed, cards from his parents on the table, looking like death warmed over. He’s looked like that for the past two days, since he was transferred from the hospital to here, and Possibelf let us in one by one to see him for five minutes.

He nods when he sees me, though I know he’s on the good drugs and don’t expect much more. Snow, however, lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. “Baz! You’re back, are you alright? What was it, can you tell us? It was a fire, right? The one on TV? Penelope said, but-“

“Jesus fuck, Snow.” I’m ordered into a bed by the matron and it feels nice to sit, Snow silenced temporarily, though there’s actually something nice about the haze of words. He’s never normally one to chatter.

I’m to spend the day and night under supervision, and to let them fit me in a cast for my hand. Possibelf pops her head around the door at one point during the course of the morning and says, “Good work today, Basilton.”

“Thanks, Professor.” I’m not expecting this. There weren’t any such tidings previously. It continues to seem odd until she adds, “Elspeth told me you were incredible. Professor Holloway agreed and told me to ask you about a new development, in your abilities?”

Now it makes sense.

Before I have to answer in any way other than nodding, Matron comes around and glares disapprovingly at her. The lovely thing about the matron here is that she doesn’t agree with children or teenagers or former students going on call outs. She doesn’t like anyone going, anyway. Thinks it’s stupid that, ‘you all risk your lives and for what? Nothing. None of it matters, at the end.’

She’s rather like Ebb in that sense, and I like that, especially when it means that Possibelf, professor and veteran hero and headteacher, bows her head and leaves.

Dev wakes up from his pain meds around lunch and we have a five-minute conversation before he gets his next dose and sleeps through them. I’m supposed to be resting, but the after action field report needs writing, though my hand pretty much prevents that. I wouldn’t know what to write, anyhow, and I can’t write it, so I shove the paperwork to one side and nap, following Dev’s example, until Penelope barges in after study hours and berates me.

Once done, she tells me to shove over and curls up next to me, like we used to share beds when we were younger.

**

There’s a month until the adults decide to continue training us.

Snow’s back, leg more or less healed, Dev is exempt and Agatha refuses. She’d been quiet when she visited the evening of the fire, and she’s now like Ebb, she doesn’t think she should have to, just because she could.

Ebb had been pale when she’d visited. All protocol and boundaries flew out of the window and I got hugged before she, like Penelope, began a lecture, though it was more similar to Matron’s disgust combined with sad attempts at talking about her brother and ended with, “Are you sure you’re alright, kid?”

At nearly eighteen, I’d object to that treatment if it wasn’t almost nice.

Ebb had stayed until the babies were done with dinner and left me to Agatha and her tear-stained face.

Dev had gotten the full brunt of Agatha’s tears, but it was still awful.

She refuses to go when Salisbury appears in the games room, her arms folded, cornsilk hair tossed back. Penelope had jumped up, and Niall; Snow went and I sort of followed him.

I’m not letting Snow go without me, can you imagine?

This time, it’s to an underground station near Elephant and Castle, where a train has been stopped between stations, possibly a hostage situation. Salisbury goes, Elspeth too, but Possibelf stays at school. The Minotaur coordinates this time, with only Penelope on Intel.

I’m sent in behind Salisbury, up with Niall, though Snow gets the Elspeth treatment. Snow gets sick in cars, let alone when faced with the complete breakdown of his molecular structure.

The sitrep Minos conveys places us with an evacuated station, no staff, no civilians, just however many people are on the train. “An emergency alarm was pulled, CCTV from the train shows at least two men holding the train hostage, possible IEDs, door to the driver's entrance is open - how they got in, killed the driver instantly.”

Having both Snow and I here seems slightly unnecessary. Snow himself is a bomb and this is an underground train station, not useful to blow it up. My thing is fire, that’s hardly useful but I follow and obey protocol and try not to grimace as we walk down three escalators, knowing we’ll have to walk back up them.

Salisbury is actually bulletproof, so he leads the situation inside the station, Niall follows him being basically bulletproof too, leaving me to follow. There’s a grim warning issued over comms about the third rail, and then we’re walking a quarter of a mile along the track. Elspeth and Snow are already there, waiting in an access tunnel just out of sight, and police offers are visible just further behind them.

The plan of action Salisbury decides on requires sending him into the first carriage to negotiate, Niall into the second to half them off, Snow down the tunnel ahead to block it off if needs be, though that’s the nuclear option and I apparently have the same job this end of the tunnel. “Form a blockade, of sorts. No one gets past you, civilian or otherwise.”

For a moment, I’m about to ask, “What, am I just supposed to set a wall of fire?” And then I realise that’s basically why I’m here.

Either that, or the learning aspect of this is how to negotiate with suspects, educated by a man who’s only real position is a minor member of the English Gentry, yet who’s so bad at that, he became a superhero.

That’s harsh, Salisbury can’t really be so bad, but fuck it.

There’s a gunshot and one of the carriage windows cracks, drowned out by the screams of civilians, and I see Snow blur, even as far away as I am. Elspeth is next to me, and I give her a warning glance. “Sorry. Don’t let anyone pass.”

Then I’m running down the tunnel, past the train and I know I’m going to be reprimanded for this, but I reach Snow and he’s starting to shimmer, set off by the gunshots and the stress of the situation. He doesn’t like being a bomb, and now he’s here, primed to go off on civilians.

I reach for him and grab his arm. “Easy, Snow, come on.”

“Trying. Not happening. Get away, Baz.” His teeth are gritted, curls sticking to his forehead and he’s clenching his fists.

“Just the one shot, mostly already death with. No bleeding or reports over comms, not important. It’s fine, Snow. As fine as this is.” I tighten the hold I have on his wrist and lower my voice, though I don’t have high hopes of this working.

Snow’s almost completely blurred now, like he’s fallen out of focus, and that such a not good sign. I don’t let go, but I do turn to comms. “We’ve got a Snow situation happening. Repeat, Snow is going off.”

Comms crackles with the interference Snow is giving out, and that’s something I’d forgotten he does, he’s practically an element now, hanging in the air like lead, and he’s more of a problem than the people in the train will ever be.

“Snow.”

“Baz.”

“Hold it together, come on. Situation’s fine.”

“I know. Shit. Gotta get it together.” He’s grunting now, with the effort, and it’s a miracle he’s not already brought the tunnel down around us.

“Come on, Snow. Save it. We’ve got a job to do, this isn’t looking like part of it. People, come on. Got to do our bit.” I bring one hand up to his face, and I’m sort of ordering him to stay here. It works, he listens, I think, because the air stops shimmering and his eyes regain some of their ordinary colour rather than the otherworldly gold they’d been a moment ago.

I haul him back towards Elspeth, past the train, where the screaming has stopped but there are the thuds of people being thrown around, and my money is on Salisbury hitting the floor.

Whatever happens, Niall throws a cuffed woman out of the door and jumps down after her, keeping one hand on her arm and a bruised Salisbury jumps down holding onto a man. He nods, and Elspeth, Snow and I start evacuating the civilians, though I never let go of Snow, just send people past us, escorted by the police officers who’ve wisely kept out of the way.

What throws me most is when Snow helps a kid down from the train and looks like he’s been electrocuted. That’s a weird moment, but what’s truly weird is that it’s The Boy. The Boy, who glares at Snow, rejects the hand down and runs off towards the station down the tunnel and when I turn to mention it, Snow bristles and yanks himself free from the hand I have on his arm.

He doesn’t calm down for the rest of the afternoon, gets tenser and tenser as we escort the last people out of the train and up, and it looks like we’re going to have a second Snow alert for the day.

Whatever.

He’s not my problem, which means I ignore him once we’re out of the station and let Possibelf assess him.

My field report later reads like a jumbled mess, because it is. I comment on the reappearance of The Boy, but he’s never been identified before and I spend an hour trying to figure out how to list every occurrence without sounding crazy or negligent and decide to give up.

Snow asks what I’ve written for mine, stalking into the library that evening, hair damp and out of uniform, close enough that his eyes are inches from mine, as close as we’d been earlier, and when I show him, his eyes cloud over and tells me to cut out any information about The Boy.

“What the fuck, Snow?”

“Trust me. Cut that.”

Before I can ask anything else, he stalks out of the library, slamming the door.

**

I don’t omit the information about The Boy, no matter what Snow had said. I don’t, however, highlight it too much or query previous sightings.

Why, I don’t quite know. Why Snow demanded I did, or why I edit my report.

I hand it in before heading down to the dining hall and it’s quiet when I enter. Understandably. Dev is still confined to the hospital wing, and Snow isn’t at dinner, and I would want him to be, not after the scene in the library.

Penelope elbows me sharply when I comment on his absence, though she doesn’t actually say anything, so I ignore her and we all eat in silence. The younger years are all talking and Ebb is sitting with the babies, presiding over their little court, and the chatter is sort of grating in comparison.

It doesn’t hide the aggressive scratching of Penelope’s cutlery or Agatha’s sulking, so I eat quickly, abandoning most of dinner — roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, a shame to miss — and escape, ignoring the concerned look Ebb shoots me as I go.

Unfortunately, not even my room is free of Snow, mostly because his is right next door and I can hear him crashing around and swearing and, suddenly, setting him on fire doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. It’s been two months since school started back up; breaking the ‘no attacking each other’ rule would be far more acceptable.

The crashing stops, eventually, but the swearing gets louder. It’s mildly alarming, and when I check his door, it’s locked. I poke my head out of my window just in time to see Snow lowering himself down the side of the building, relying on a weird combination of sheet and drainpipe because he’s a disaster just asking to fall twenty feet down the side of a building.

Not that that would kill him. I don’t think, anyway. I pushed him down the stairs, July of his very first year, and he just sort of floated.

He’s climbing down the side of the building, sneaking out and it’s so stupid that, before I can stop to think, I’m grabbing my jacket, running down the hall and two flights of stairs to the corridor Penelope’s on and slipping into her room. She never locks her door, even though she could and probably should, and her room this year is only one terrifying leap from the fire escape.

I make it and climb down, jumping onto the street maybe twenty meters away from where Snow will have landed, maybe thirty seconds behind him.

Why he’s sneaking out, I can’t figure out. There’s no need and I’m pretty sure he’s never ducked out like this before.

I tell myself that’s why I’m following him as he ducks into the nearest tube station, skipping the Oyster card barrier and taking the circle line. I make the train just before the doors slide shut and stand in the next carriage over, watching through the evening crowd for Snow to exit.

My phone buzzes, and I know it’s Penelope, but I ignore it and the sinking feeling in my chest that I’ve crossed many boundaries here by following Snow. Does it sound better if I argue that I followed out of curiosity or concern?

I can’t imagine Possibelf will be sympathetic to either when she finds out. If, if she finds out.

We’re the oldest year of students, we get some leeway. No one will be knocking on my door, checking I’m there, so as long as I’m not following Snow into a police cell, no one will have to know.

Snow gets off the train at Brixton, not far from the last children’s home he destroyed, and I have an incredibly bad feeling about this. I follow him out, losing him twice in the crowd, though he stands out a bit, which helps.

He looks dangerous, really. We all do, a bit, and Snow uses it here, draws himself upright and looks like he could be a threat, and people give him a wide berth. They avoid me, too, and this wouldn’t nearly as easy if Snow were just a tad more observant.

He walks out to the suburb Ebb has driven me out to, where the old, red brick buildings are still burnt, and I recognise the street. It dawns on me that Snow might just be here to catch up with people, if the home reopened, and I could just be being paranoid at best, or invasive and weird at worst, but that’s looking unlikely, given that there’s still fencing around the house, but still.

The violation of his privacy is sort of validated when Snow climbs over the fencing and prises back the boarding over one of the windows so he can slip inside because there’s no universe in which that is not sketchy or suspicious behaviour. I follow him, giving it a minute so there’s no chance he sees me, and I don’t know what I’m expecting.

Snow to be buying drugs? Snow to be practising not exploding shit? Meeting a girl-

Meeting a boy?

I climb through the window and land in the blackened insides of a building I watched burn down two years ago.

Possibelf let me go to the scene because it was the fourth or fifth such event — a children’s home, burning down, in the middle of the night — and they wanted to know if it was a legitimate coincidence (which nothing is, ever) or arson, which it was, in a way. Not typical arson, no accelerants or anything unnatural — that was my job, figuring that out.

Since I can.

It’s in the fire itself, and I can tell, more quickly than any technology ever could. The fire feels different, unwilling to obey, even if I make it mine, the smoke tastes different and the heat feels off, too intense.

It wasn’t anything I’d seen before, but it was Snow’s doing. He didn’t even get to another home before Salisbury picked him up, excusing him from local authority care and dropping him into Watford, ruining my life.

Perhaps that’s a tad overdramatic.

Inside looks like an abandoned building pretty much should, but the floorboards are sparse, exposing concrete foundations, and it seems fairly likely that upstairs is worse.

There’s graffiti on the walls and the room smells like weed, suggesting that I’m either right about Snow’s hobbies or he’s not the only person to break in here. Which he has done and so have I — technically we’re trespassing; it’s looking more and more likely that I was right about the police cell, too, but before I can dwell on that, I hear Snow’s voice.

“Still not showing your real self? Why the fuck did you come?”

A voice echoes back, “Still not showing your real self? Why the fuck did you come?”

Whoever Snow’s meeting, they’re clearly a child. The high pitched, mocking voice is a dead giveaway, and it continues, “You’re the one who finally showed up.”

“Well, I had to, didn’t I? Whatever you’re doing, stop.”

I don’t like the sound of what Snow is saying. It’s the kind of thing innocent people not embroiled in something creepy and illegal don’t say.

Whomever Snow’s speaking to — and I’m convinced it’s a child, a young boy, the voice can’t belong to anyone else, and that makes everything about this worse — scoffs at him. “I don’t do nothin’. They do it.”

“You make them! You- Jesus Christ.”

This is so much worse than I thought it would be. Why couldn’t Snow just be buying weed?

There is, of course, the matter of what I’m going to do. I’m far enough away that I could climb back out the window and go back to Watford and pretend none of this is happening, or I could call the police or Penelope or even Ebb and Possibelf, but that’s sort of pointless. I don’t know anything to tell them, and nothing makes sense. Plus, well, I don’t want to.

I creep forwards, making for the door, and the floor does not feel particularly stable beneath my feet.

Snow’s...friend is still talking, “What if I don’t mean to? What if I could stop it? What if you could stop it?”

“I’ve offered! I’ve tried. I could teach you- Or get someone to. You could learn control. I could-“

I don’t feel like listening to much more of this, not without answers, and I push what’s left of the door open, squinting down the hallway for Snow and-

Holy shit.

I see Snow, scruffy and defiant as usual, and the…child he’s met and it’s him. It’s the boy, The Boy, and in retrospect, that’s not so surprising, not after the moment this afternoon and Snow’s insolence, but shit.

The Boy sees me and grins and then, before I can help it, I’m being dragged towards them, steady-footed and light-headed, and it’s not my decision to step forwards anymore. His grin grows and he summons me and then I’m lighting a fire in my hand, engulfing myself in flames and pushing past The Boy for Snow and this isn’t right. I don’t want to do this, hurt Snow, I don’t I don’t I don’t.

Snow ducks forward and dives towards The Boy, knocking him to the floor in a heap and pinning him down. As he dives, he trips me, but it doesn’t stop me. I spin and grab for him, flames catching his jacket, extinguished as soon as Snow realises and drops to the floor.

“Stop it. Stop it, fucking now.” Snow’s growling, simultaneously pinning The Boy to the floor and yanking him out of the way as I set fire to the floor and walls around us. He looks up at me, blue eyes and panic, but when he speaks, it’s slower. “You don’t want to do this, Baz. You don’t have to. Please.”

He’s right, he’s absolutely right, and he’s wrong. I’ve wanted to set Simon on fire for years, but I haven’t, I haven’t and I’m not going to start now. I won’t start now. I force myself still, digging my heels into the remains of the floorboards, and I can see The Boy frown as the flames go out, extinguished as instantly as they started, without any real effort on my part and then I’m gasping, as far away as I can get, the charred wall against my back.

Snow seems as equally breathless and he rails on The Boy again, grabbing him by the neck of his t-shirt. “You shouldn’t fucking do that. Don’t fucking-“

The Boy’s still smirking, though it’s ruined by a twist of surprise and he’s fighting Snow, scrabbling at the grip Simon has on him. He’s not looking at Simon, though, but staring at me. “You stopped. You’re not supposed to do that. You should have killed him.”

Nothing makes any sense and I’ve just almost killed- almost burnt- almost? And it’s The Boy, it’s. Nothing makes sense and my head swims, vision going black.

I drop to my knees and put my head between them and it’s silent, horribly silent asides from my breathing and Snow’s, but it does the trick after a while, though I can’t tell how long it’s been when I finally manage to spit out, “I’ve wanted to kill Simon since I met him. You’re not going to make me.”

The Boy stops fighting and continues to stare at me despite the hold Snow still has on him, and that seems to make Snow relax, albeit relatively so, and he drops him and scrambles upright, towards me. “Baz?”

“Explain, Snow. Now.”

Instead of answering, he holds his hand out to me, offering to help me up and I don’t know how he can stand it. I could burn him now, I could and I almost did and I didn’t even want to. Not at that moment. I take it, though, let Snow’s fingers close around mine and draw myself up to eye level and I say it again, fighting to keep any shred of composure. “Explain.”

“He can’t,” The Boy jumps in, back on his own two feet and standing behind Simon, like a shadow. “Not now. It’s too much.”

He steps towards and I take three steps back. The Boy merely shrugs. “I like you. I can’t make you. Not properly.”

I’m going insane. I’ve gone insane and that’s the only explanation. I’m in the hospital ring and have been for weeks. Either that or I’m drugged.

He looks up at Snow. “He can teach me. I can’t break him, so he can teach me not to break the others.”

I grab Simon’s arm and force him to look at me, though I’m not sure why. It proves this is real, though. Simon’s blue eyes are real and that means this is real and The Boy is too.

The Boy is real as he turns to me and says, “You can teach me.”

Teach him what? Snow’s hand curls around mine more tightly, and I add that question to this list of those I’m going to beat out of him- I’m-

I add that question to the list.

“Why would I do that?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own and I hate it.

“Because otherwise, I’ll do to others what I tried to do to you.” He’s a child, no matter what he is or can do and the threat sounds almost disarming delivered in his high pitched voice.

I tighten the hold I have on Simon, though there’s not really any distance left between us. “That’s not a reason, that’s a hostage situation.”

The Boy shrugs. “Then, because it will help him.”

He juts his chin towards Simon and shrugs again, stepping out of Simon’s shadow before stepping past us to the back of the building, though I don’t have the wherewithal to follow and I don’t think Snow does either. He’s gone before I can decide to follow, and when I can think, I turn to Simon again. “What the hell, Snow?”

**

Simon is still holding my hand as he pulls me out of the building.

The only answer I get to my question is a brusque, “Not here,” before he drags me back towards the window I followed him in through, and I’m not sure who has the high ground.

He’s clearly knee deep in shit, but I might have just- I-

He’s the one with the…acquaintance who can apparently do that, said as much and he does-

I am the one, however, who followed him here and snuck up on him.

He’s the one with the answers, though, so I think he’s obligated to share and I stumble after him, catching my jacket on the remains of the glass window as I throw myself through it after Simon. When I stumble, he seems to realise and slow down from the marathon pace he’s attempting and waits for me, the hold he has on my hand loosening from the vice-like grip it had been.

We’re in silence and it lingers all the way back to Brixton high street when Simon turns to me and asks, “You’ve got cash, right?”

He doesn’t wait for me to nod, before he bundles me into a takeaway, shoving me towards the only table, by the window. I sit, handing over the change in my pockets when Simon asks and wait whilst he buys two bottles of water, one of which he places in front of me. He’s looking at me strangely again, and it takes Simon asking, “Are you okay?” for me to figure out he’s actually concerned.

I think about laughing for a moment and then I feel dizzy again, but I manage to say, “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

Simon just looks confused until I lean across the table towards him and hiss, “I- I set fire to you. How did- How did he make me-“

“You almost set me on fire. Only almost. And- He, he does that. Are you okay?”

I want to roll my eyes, cry, maybe laugh. “Snow,” I say, and Simon nods, pushing the water towards me.

He’s right about the water, it helps, and I manage to swallow a couple of mouthfuls before looking back at him. “He does that? Who the fuck does that? Who is he? And don’t make me ask why you were there.”

Simon looks defeated for a second before drawing himself upright, sitting up straight, uncharacteristically aware for him, and he glances over his shoulder to the man on the till before he says, “It’s complicated, alright?”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Look- He’s- He’s just a kid. He’s…like one of us. I guess that’s accurate. We- We were in a home together.”

As Simon speaks, he stares just past my shoulder, out the window, and I know he’s not telling the truth, not the full truth, anyway.

“He- He does what he did to you, but on others. People who don’t even belong to our freak show, he can make them belong to it. Tell them to do something, give them something, take it away, I don’t know. He just does. I was moved away, to a different home after I- I met him. Didn’t see him until the last one. And then again- At the Markets. And the- And today.”

Simon’s not making any sense, and the questions are piling up.

“You met him, though. At the house. Why?”

He runs his hands through his hair, tearing at it and I know I’ve just caught him in a lie. “Because I’ve seen him before this afternoon. Since the markets. I found him back here. That home, that was the last one. He’s still there, always is. Didn’t get moved on, I guess.”

“He’s a kid, Snow, they must have found him somewhere. Why are you meeting him?”

“Because I’m responsible, I am.” He slumps his head forward and I still don’t get it, but something in me deflates, all the hard edges crumble and I lean forward too.

“What does he want?” I’m quieter now than I have ever been talking to Simon, but I have a horrible feeling I’m not going to like the answer, and starting out quiet gives me somewhere to go without resorting to shouting.

Simon shrugs. “Mayhem, maybe. He’s a git. He ruins everything.”

“From me, Snow.”

“I’ve always- He's always struggled with control, I guess. It’s him, right? These past callouts. The tube, he was there, the markets-“

“-the fire-“

“-the fire, yep, everything else that’s happened recently, at least, all the weird ones or whatever, but it don’t get why he would unless it’s a genuine accident. Or he’s bored. He wants you to teach him to control it.”

My blood runs cold and it’s like Simon’s not thinking about an hour ago, and it’s all I can think about, fire and cotton wool thoughts and someone else making me. “No. Absolutely not.”

“What he said-“

“We tell someone. Possibelf. Ebb. Salisbury. The police.”

“No.” Snow growls and it takes everything I have not to flinch backwards.

“Snow.”

“Baz.”

“Snow.”

“If it was your family, what would you do?”

“He’s your family?”

“No! No, but-It’s the only comparison I’ve got.”

“Snow.”

Simon, I want to say, I almost- He made me- I don’t want to.

“Please. Just- So he can’t do it anymore. Can’t, won’t make people. Won’t be able to do it just by looking at them.”

“That’s not control-“

“Please.” Snow’s slumping forwards again, and none of this is a reason to help him. To-

I don’t have to help him. I don’t. I don’t have to help The Boy. Surely there’s no help there. I should tell one of the adults who’s not going to be in over their head with this. This Boy, the boy, whatever, is dangerous. He’s one of us, though. Simon was dangerous, is dangerous. He- He did more damage than a ruptured gas pipeline. He’s not now, Salisbury, the others, worked with him.

It feels like there’s a stampede of elephants running around in my brain and I don’t know what to do.

I look at Simon, and he’s a mess. We both must be.

“Okay.”

“What?”

“Once,” I say, and I feel physically sick.

I stand up, shoving my chair in the window and I try not to look as shaky as I feel. “This has been enough for one day. Come back to Watford, or don’t, I don’t care, but I can’t be here anymore.”

**

Penelope’s waiting for me when I climb back up the fire escape.

I think about the text I ignored what’s now hours ago, and the state I must seem to be in, and the look on her face says everything and nothing.

She pulls me into a hug, which is unusual for us, and we sit on the end of her bed.

“Basil,” She says, and I know I’m screwed.

The most coherently Penelope has ever explained herself to me, her intelligence, omnipotence, prophet-ness, her superpowers, whatever it can be called, was when we were fourteen. We were camped out on the fire escape and she said, “Do you have any idea how boring it is?”

“What, being friends with you?”

She hit me and then said, “Knowing everything.”

“You don’t know everything.”

“I know what you’re going to have for breakfast in three weeks time.”

“That’s not difficult.”

“In three years time.”

“Penelope.”

“I do. And it’s boring. I can’t even watch TV without knowing. I know that, in four years time, Netflix is going to remake Sabrina the Teenage Witch. What’s the point in watching it when I know the aunt will be murdered by the mother?”

“And you just know? Can’t you not? Do you just know, or do you think about it and then it’s there?”

She was quiet for a while, and I thought there was some irony in the conversation. “I think about something, and then there’s no question anymore.”

“So don’t, Penelope. Just. Don’t. Think about something until it’s necessary.”

She’d hummed and kicked me in the shin, and that had been the end of the conversation.

Now, I’m wondering if she’s thought about it. She must have. The hug. The fact that I yawn and she pushes me over until I’m slumped against her pillows.

She picks up a book and sits in her desk chair, raising her eyebrow when I make to speak.

“Shut up and sleep, Basilton.”

**

Unfortunately, everything turns out to be real.

I don’t get to wake up back in my own room, having fallen asleep after dinner, ignoring the thumping stupidity of Simon. Instead, I wake up at four am in Penelope’s room and have to run to make it to be sick in her sink.

Penelope doesn’t wake; she’s always been a heavy sleeper. She’s slumped in her desk chair, glasses askew, book on the floor and after I’ve washed away the evidence and swallowed as much water as I can from the tap, I rescue it, placing it on her desk before easing her from the chair to her bed and throwing a blanket over her.

I feel disgusting — like I set myself on fire, broke into a burnt down wreck and ran a mile through Brixton before walking back to Watford — and I sneak back to my own room from Penelope’s, making it as far as my corridor from the staircase before I think about Simon.

He didn’t follow me through the fire escape, and I made sure I didn’t wait for him after leaving, and that leaves me questioning whether he’s here or not, and if not, if I’m going to have to answer to Possibelf.

His door is shut, as it should be, but when I knock on it, as quietly as I can given the hour, it’s opened immediately, and Snow is there, looking as dishevelled as I feel. I nod at him, and it’s awkward, but he lights up, eyes wide and opening the door wider until I take a step backwards.

He gets it, seemingly, and I turn back to my own room, turning on the light and shutting the door before making for my own bathroom.

I take one of the longest showers of my life, and by the time I emerge, it’s almost the time I’d be waking up, so I end up in my uniform, dressed and ready for breakfast and the first one at the hall.

Well. Almost first. I think I am until I step inside and see Simon sat in his usual seat, tea in front of him and a blank look on his face. He straightens when he sees me and, without thinking, I say, “For heaven's sake, Snow. I’m not the Queen.”

The blush that burst across his face almost makes me feel worse. I drop into the spot two seats down, next to where Agatha normally sits, and have to force myself to look at him. “Are you- Are you okay?”

“Yeah. You didn’t, you know. No fire, Baz.”

That’s not true and we both know it. My blood runs cold and I press my palms against the table.

“I did. Even if- I did. Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Simon jerks around so he’s facing me and I’ve never seen him so earnest. It’s overwhelming, and I have to remember to breathe as he turns the question back to me. “Are you, Baz?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I can’t make it sound right, and the question falls flat, not mocking enough or sincere enough or bitter enough, and Snow nods.

We sit in silence then, though, after a while, Simon slides his tea along the table and drops into the seat next to mine.

**

There are no callouts for a while.

Not for us, at least.

They’ve got ex-students to call on, and more and more members of staff step up to reprise their ensemble roles, so we get a break from the training or readiness or whatever bullshit Possible wants to dress this up as. Dev stops wincing whenever he sits down, Agatha frowns less and less, Ebb shows up to help us decorate the Christmas tree in the games room.

Penelope doesn’t say anything and I know it’s her way of reminding us that the less she knows, the better. However, whilst Penelope is discreet, it’s like Simon doesn’t know the meaning of the word. He doesn’t stop staring at me and it’s like any trace of normality has gone up in flames-

It’s like any trace of normality has vanished and we’re back to the start of the year weirdness, with Simon staring at me and hovering and I’m expecting- I don’t know what to expect. I don’t get it. I don’t get how he can bear to sit next to me, bear to be partnered with me for practicals, bear to lean over the candles they put out at dinner.

He does, though. He’s everywhere and he’s never anywhere. He lingers, which is annoying and not enough and too much, especially when- When I owe him something, when I promised something I shouldn’t have and when I-

I owe him, in relative terms, and he doesn’t collect or remind me, he’s just there.

**

I wake up screaming, or what would have been a scream if I’d been able to breathe enough, and it’s the third time this week.

I’ve lost count of how many nights I’ve woken up from the nightmare, but it’s been more nights than not in the past month, and tonight’s dream was no difference.

Everything is like cotton wool again, I’m lightheaded and being sent around like a wind-up toy, only it’s never at the home. It’s here and Simon’s room is right next door and I never stop myself.

I never scream either, never manage to work up to one, always too busy fighting to get my breath back afterwards.

Screaming would be something at least.

**

It’s Christmas. Sort of. Technically.

Christmas at Watford isn’t like real Christmas. Though I’ve not had a real Christmas since I was eleven and not really before that, not since I was four and my mother died.

We don’t go home, not for this holiday. Sure, there are exceptions, but most stay and holidays at school never seem like real holidays.

They still run classes, still put on training, though I’ve found the easiest way to get out of training is to be walking past the hospital wing just before it starts and let matron rant at me until I’m far too late to join in. Professor Minos hasn’t yet caught on and it means I’m not partnered with Simon, so as solutions go, skipping class is highly effective.

There are still presents, at Watford. The teacher in charge of every corridor is responsible for stockings, at least for younger students, and the rest of us get each other something. This year, I’ve bought Penelope a t-shirt with the logo of Skynet industries, Agatha’s getting a scarf she wistfully showed me a picture of in November, Dev and Niall are getting video games and I’ve bought Ebb a jumper.

She still wears her school jumper from when she was a student here, and whilst I understand that Ebb is big on sentiment, it’s more rust coloured these days and the sleeves are stiff. She’ll pretend to like it, no matter what, and since students don’t usually give staff Christmas presents, it’ll mean something to her.

Simon- Simon.

I don’t have anything for Simon. Now, it seems like a bit of a travesty, but I didn’t last year, either, so I’m hoping it won’t be like he’s expecting anything. Then again, things aren’t exactly like they were last year.

He stares at me, for one thing, and there’s been no vitriol or fighting, and there’s the staring.

Simon stills tares at me, every chance he gets, and when I catch him, he blushes, and it’s-

Well. I’d say it’s pretty, though that hardly seems to do it justice.

Simon stares at me and, if I have to, I’ll admit I stare back. Sometimes. Only when I’m sure he’s not looking and no one else is either.

I’m not going to do anything about it.

I’m not even sure if we’re staring for the same reasons.

Though, having said that, I was pretty sure before. If I spoke to Penelope about it, which I’m not going to, she’d hit me over the head. She’d say it’s at least correlation and whilst correlation isn’t causation, there’s a high probability, maths, maths, maths, whatever.

Actually, she could probably just definitively tell me.

I’m not asking Penelope, though. Or Simon.

Even if we were staring for the same reasons, and we’re probably not — I think he’s pretty, gorgeous, well fi, whatever doesn’t mean it’s the same — that doesn’t mean doing anything about it is a good idea. As ideas go, it’s fairly disastrous. Simon is a disaster, but then again-

-I catch a glimpse of my reflection as I skulk around the hospital wing on the Monday morning when the Minotaur is making everyone review basic first aid and if Simon’s a disaster, so am I.

My hair’s too long, I need to cut, but that’s fairly superfluous. I’m tired and I look it, I’m grey, or at least paler than usual, and that makes me look less like myself than anything else. I’m also twitchy. I haven’t practised- haven’t brought about a flame since, and it’s like it builds up.

My mother would have explained things for me, how it goes — this was her gift, I just inherited it — but she never told me anything more than the children’s fairy tales, so I’m in as much of a blind spot as everyone else. Not practising doesn’t help, though, not when you get used to it, build up a tolerance of what you can do, and then suddenly stop.

I’m twitchy, as a result, tense, and perhaps I was once unfair to Simon. No one would know anything was wrong by looking at him; me, however, I’m giving everything away.

It’s at the point where Dev, who was shot less than two months ago, is concerned about me. That’s pretty telling.

Therefore, it’s probably a good thing I’m not going home for Christmas. Even my father would say something, and Daphne most definitely would. Not to mention Mordelia; she’d probably get out the 'my first doctor' kit she got when she was six and use it as an excuse to beat me with a toy stethoscope. Fuck knows what Fiona would say.

Christmas at Watford means the babies put tinsel along every staircase and bannister and we hear the same three Christmas songs over and over on repeat, so it’s a relief when I slope out of dinner early, perhaps a tad miserly for saying it’s four days before Christmas, though any plans of doing anything get thrown out of the window when Simon knocks on my door fifteen minutes later.

“No.” I don’t even bother to answer the door, he opens it anyway, and I’m slumped on the end of my bed, meaning I have to crane my neck to look at him. He’s red in the face, which isn’t unusual, and any barbs I might have thrown at him die when I realise he’s wearing his coat.

It can only mean he’s going out and since it’s already dark and Agatha hasn’t decided on something festive and stupid, he can only be meeting The Boy.

He’s here because I promised him, and I can’t protest. I can’t break that promise, and there’s the stupid, stupid saying — an Englishman’s word is his bond — running through my head as I force myself upright and nod. “Snow.”

“Baz.”

“I promised, didn’t I? Once, Snow. And if anything-“ My voice trails off then, and I realise I’m glaring at him, not that it seems to have had much effect on Simon. I think I liked him better when I could intimate him.

This time, I make him follow me down to Penelope’s and the fire escape, though he makes to protest when I let us into Penelope’s room. “She knows, Snow. She has to, it’s Penelope.”

My stomach twists and I’m considering letting Simon out onto the fire escape and then locking the window behind him, but I promised and it seems hard for him too, if the way he’s loitering, letting me drag my feet, is anything to go by.

We don’t go back to Brixton, not this time, and Simon and I catch the bus out to Hammersmith, although I’ don’t get it until I look at Simon and realise that he’s been in touch with him, with The Boy, somehow.

I elbow Snow and he grimaces. “What was that for?”

“You’ve got his number.”

“What? Who- No.”

“Snow.”

“Not exactly?”

“What? He’s got your number, then?” I elbow him again, and it feels good to touch him, if that makes any sense, to know that he’s not hurt by me, not even when I make the choice.

I’m still glaring at him, but Simon just shakes his head. “I don’t even have my number, Baz. He’s just…okay, yes. I called. Or, he did. Just- please?”

I elbow him once more for good measure and then turn my head out of the window, ignoring Simon intel we get of the bus three stops before it would turn around, and I have no idea where we are or where we could be going until I realise that Simon does and so we’re going somewhere he’s already been to. “It’s not another home, is it? One you- Disrupted?”

“Not exactly.”

Simon keeps walking and we end up in a skate park, standing in between the ramps. It’s almost dark and we’re currently the only people around, but he’s pacing around anyway, marking off a perimeter and sticking to it, though I’m not sure he even knows he’s doing it.

I climb up to the top of one if themes and dangle my legs over the end. I wish I’d brought a jumper rather than just my coat, it’s freezing and I’m almost tempted to join Simon, just to be doing something, though Simon seems to be in a whole other world.

Braving it out is the only choice and I sit there for what feels like an eternity, though one glimpse at my mobile reveals only five minutes have passed.

It’s as Simon finishes one loop of his perimeter that the boy appears out of nowhere, wandering up to us with a grin on his face, and despite the fact that I’m twenty feet away, it already feels like he’s more than close enough.

He’s in what looks like the same ratty jeans and grubby t-shirt as before, and he’s without a coat, which, in this weather, is ridiculous. That thought is ridiculous, and I look at him properly, objectively, and I feel sick.

I also wonder about this kid, about The Boy, because he’s precisely that; a boy. Sure, he’s old enough that I know calling him a kid would probably cause the world to end, but he’s still just that. He’s short and scrawny and wearing Asda jeans with reinforced knees, and he’s still a kid, in his face, in the wicked sharp grin he aims at Simon and the way he’s barely chest height on him.

If anything, this makes me feel worse, and it’s only the thought that running would leave Simon alone here that makes me stay, jumping down from my seat on the ramp only to instantly have The Boy in my personal space.

Simon steps forwards too, though he’s stood behind The Boy as he says, “You came. I can’t decide if this makes you brave or stupid.”

He steps closer, like an overeager puppy, and my stomach clenches. Tonight, there’s no cotton wool, not yet, but I begin to doubt myself in yet another way, made worse when The Boy circles around me. “You said you’d help me. What are we doing first?”

“I said I’d help Simon. You seem to think teaching you will do that. What do you want to from me?” Looking at Simon makes it easier to keep my voice steady because it’s the truth. I’m here because I promised him, and that’s not worth breaking.

The Boy’s hands are in his pockets and he narrows his eyes. “I want to make it do what I want.”

“It?”

I have a very bad feeling about this. The Boy is still staring at me and I swallow, trying not to let anything show on my face. “I can’t do anything if I don’t know what you mean.”

He’s a child. He doesn’t even come to my shoulders and he’s scrawny and dishevelled. Barring whatever it is that he can do, in theory, I should have the upper hand. Hell, I have Simon. I think. There’s a lot arguing that I shouldn’t flinch when he takes a step forward, despite the fact that I do, despite the fact that it’s all I can do not to turn tail and run for home.

Despite the fact that I have a perfectly good reason and The Boy has just smiled at me and asked, “Show me how you do the fire. I want to see.”

“No.” Simon’s voice is low and he surprises me with the interjection. He’s stepped forwards, in front of me and he’s towering over The Boy in a way that doesn’t fit with what he’s said before. I must be missing something, but there no chance to dwell on that because Simon’s grabbing The Boy, walking him three steps backwards and glaring menacingly. “You don’t get to ask that. Don’t fuck with him.”

“Snow,” I try to pull him back to by my side and he protests, grumbling until I tighten the hold I have on his arm and dig my fingernails in. “You beating him to a pulp makes being here pointless.”

The Boy grins and I instantly regret restraining Simon, though I don’t let go. “You want, what? To be taught? So how do you do…whatever it is?”

He doesn’t have to speak, I know that much.

“I just do. I want them to do something and then I can do anything to get them to.”

I’m the wrong person for this. It sounds like a Penelope problem, like a super villain version of knowing when Simon’s flossed and when he’s lying about it, or rather knowing that Simon hasn’t flossed and making him.

Thinking like this isn’t helpful, though, and I’m here to do something. I’m here and that’s enough, I know it should be, but he said it would help Simon and I have to do something.

“What do you do? Do you picture it? Or is it more like a wish for you?” It’s with difficulty that I make myself let go of Simon, though I don’t move any closer to The Boy.

He’s not smirking right now, rather he looks almost thoughtful and it takes him a while to say, “I picture it, what I want. And then I use them.”

His words make me feel sick to my stomach, but I can use that. He pictures it, that’s-

That’s similar enough to how I was taught by my mother, and I can do something with that. “When you picture it, what do you generally picture, you doing it?? Do you think of the end result, or what you’ll need?”

Simon is looking between us like a he’s not sure if he should stop this or stay out of the way, and he seems to opt for the latter because he takes a step or three back and loiters just out of my sight, and whilst it means he’s as out of the way as he ever gets, it also means there’s only The Boy for me to focus on and I don’t like the illusion that I’m alone with him.

“I imagine what I’ll need. I see them doing it and then I get them to. Like you, I wanted to see you burn him, and you were going to.”

He’s a kid, and the laugh delivers with this sounds ridiculous. That makes it easier to remain there, to stay upright, to draw my face into a sneer. I’m still not sure, however, that I sound particularly steady as I say, “Almost going to. I almost set him on fire, but only almost. There have been many occasions where I’ve thought of doing that, even without the-

“It’s still going to take a lot more than you to get me to actually set fire to Snow. If I didn’t do it last year, it probably won’t happen.”

Last year, Simon dropped a wall on me, made some horrific implications about Penelope and me, was generally unbearable and trapped me in a room with a badger.

There’s a frown on The Boy’s face, but I keep the sneer up long enough for him to drop his head and kick at the ground. Then he’s staring at Simon, intensely, his face screwed up and Simon shakes his head, fists clenching. “You can’t do it to me. I know you’re trying! Fucking forget it, why the fuck would I help you if you do this?”

The sick feeling in my stomach gets worse as I comprehend what Simon’s yelling about, and Simon takes another step backwards, turning to go, and I’m there by his side before he even has to say my name.

We get to the park gate and The Boy is somehow there, eyes wild and turned on Simon. “You promised. You have to help me. You know you do. It’s not my fault, I was made this, you know, you know it!”

Simon stops in his tracks. “No one has to do anything.”

“Please.” There’s a sniffing sound and I think there might even be tears accompanying the request, and this is- There are no words for what this is, not even Penelope would know of any that apply.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m not running for the hills.

Simon’s already slumped his shoulders and I know that means he’s going to stay.

“Snow, don’t be insane.”

“Baz.”

“Snow.”

Simon sighs and he looks between me and The Boy. “Go. You came, that’s- That’s enough. More than, even.”

It would be so easy to push past them both and head for the bus stop. So easy. I’m less than an hour away from being back at Watford. Except-

“I’m not leaving you here alone.” I hold my chin up and gesture back to where we were. “Let's just get this over with, and then I’m done, Snow. With him and- And with whatever this is.”

**

Once becomes twice.

How I end up stood, this time, on the top floor of a quiet multi-storey car park at one am, I have no idea.

Well, I do. I know why, in theory, I just don’t know why I’m actually here. The last place I want to be is with a- With whatever The Boy actually is, but I’m here and Simon’s sat on a car bonnet, and I’m holding out my hand, trying to show the junior-sized super villain how I don’t instantly burn down everything around me.

There's a good seven feet of space between us, and frankly, that’s not enough.

He makes people do what he wants — and what he wants is implicitly awful — and he doesn’t care.

By all rights, he wouldn’t even be allowed at Watford, they’d have him carted off, the fact that he’s really a child wouldn’t matter. And I’m helping him. We’re helping him, Simon and I, and that makes this bad for us by extension.

Yet I’m stood here, telling him to think of it as a match, to picture it slowly, to see things clearly and then use that match, and he’s staring at me almost studiously, actually listening. I’ve spent twenty minutes trying to work up the courage to summon an actual flame to demonstrate, but it’s not happening and I’m almost glad. I don’t actually know the extent of what he can do, I’m just assuming it extends to everything, and showing him exactly how I manage to control fire doesn’t sound like a great idea.

Therefore, we’re standing there, and I’m currently saying bullshit like, “You don’t have to let it grow. You don’t have to do anything with it. You know that right? Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

I sound like Ebb and the look on The Boy’s face suggests he’s as bored by this now as I was when I was eleven and Ebb first started to go on and on about this kind of thing. She’s got a point, though, a point that maybe applies here, but he doesn’t want to hear it.

I don’t know what I’m doing. Or why I’m really trying.

He can do anything, at least that’s my working theory, so I suggest that he summons something to practice, fitting in moderation and control, which are things I’m sure he’s said before or are at least things I know I’ve been taught and therefore might be able to teach him, but within five minutes there are six different people I can see from up here walking towards the entry ramp of the carpark.

“Jesus, shit, no. You can’t do that, not ever. I meant like, a pigeon or leaf or something.” I end up closer towards him than my seven feet perimeter and it’s the grin on his face as he thinks something or unthinks something and makes the people stop that leaves me wanting to run in the opposite direction without ever stopping.

I look past him down and peer over the edge of the building in time to see the people stop, looking dazed and sort of terrified and I know how that feels. One woman pulls out her phone, one of the men drops the messenger bags he’s carrying and there’s a kid holding a woman’s hand and he’s now clinging to her, confused, and I feel sick.

At least- At least he listened.

“You can’t do that kind of thing. Just because you can doesn’t mean you actually do it. How, how do you even do it?” I’m just repeating myself now, repeating everything I’ve said or Simon has yelled over the course of this evening and the last, but The Boy just shrugs. Shouting is futile, he doesn’t respond to it and we’d be heard by the people he’s just traumatised, but I want to anyway.

Instead, I pace a few times, trying to tamp down the urge to throttle him, before I shake my head. “I’m done. Here’s your help for this week; don’t abuse what you can do. Don’t take away people’s free will.”

I don’t even wait for Simon as I stalk towards the exit ramp.

**

This time, I’ve brought a chess set.

It’s one of the old ones, shoved on a shelf in the games room, covered in dust, and I brought it because I thought it would be a safer way to practice.

Why there’s a this time, I’m still not sure, but I’m here, leaning against the brick wall of a side street between what has to be the last Wimpy burger in London and a twenty-four-hour off-licence. Hell, why we’re on this particular side street I don’t know but I at least know that I don’t actually want to the answer.

Simon had tracked me down during the training session I was skipping — I’m still spending most of them in the hospital wing but today Simon showed up before matron could really begin to rant — and pulled me away.

I’d been confused for a moment when he told me had to say something, and he’d led to me to an unused classroom and I’d let myself think- Well. Stupid things, like Simon acting on the staring he’s been doing or acting on it myself, but he’d shut down any possibility of such things when he’d asked, “Will you still help me?”

Penelope had been curiously absent for her room again when I snuck Simon out through it, and that’s how I know she knows, though there hadn’t been time to dwell on it while we were climbing down the fire escape because Simon had started running, his only explanation being that we were late.

There wasn’t a bus this week, only a thirty-minute walk until he yanked me through an arcade and pulled me into this side street and I have to say that when I picture being pulled into side streets by boys at night it was never for nefarious reasons that would have me kicked out of school.

Instead, we met The Boy, and Simon jumped up to sit on the lid of dumpster out of the way, leaving me alone with the worst twelve-year-old to ever exist.

He isn’t impressed by the chess set. At first, he doesn’t even know what it is, but he rolls his eyes when I explain and then he’s bored by it, even when I insist he tries. “Just do something. Destroy them for all I care, move them, swallow them, whatever, just do it using your-“

I wave my hand to finish the sentence before gesturing back at the chess set. The Boy’s still unimpressed and he leans back against the opposite wall, glaring at me in a similar manner to mine as I sneer at him. I last about three minutes before I swear under my breath and step forward, though there’s not enough space in the street for me not to be uncomfortably close to him. “Would you just try? Otherwise, there is no point to any of this.”

“It doesn’t work with that. The pieces aren’t real, they won’t do it.” There’s a note of frustration in his voice as he kicks at the chess set, and for a second I feel a bit better about the alleged omnipotence I’m up against. Then he stomps on one.

I’m expecting it to break, maybe for the concrete we’re stood on to crack, but his foot passes through it and then he stomps again, this time sending the entire set flying. I blink a couple of times and have to step back when he sends the board itself flying.

I didn’t expect this, but I reach out for him before I can think too deeply about what I’m doing and catch him by the back of his neck. It has the opposite effect I was hoping for, instead of calming donor even stopping, he wriggles free, more defensive than before if such a thing is even possible.  
  
Simon jumps down and grabs for him to, and he manages to get him to stand still long enough for me to say, “Then tell me that kind of thing. What, you can only do it to people?”

“Yes. You’ve got to be able to do it, I just-“

“You make them, I know.”

He’s kicking at the ground, scuffing his sneakers, though any new damage is indistinguishable from the rest, and then he’s glaring again. “I just can’t do it right. I got trapped in the fire because I made him do it too well. He didn’t even have fire, I gave it to him, but then it was too much. They weren’t supposed to go for a bank and take money, I didn’t do it right then. The markets didn’t go right, either. They Tok spears and they did it like they couldn’t do it without them, but I made them able to. I made them and they didn’t. Te train- That was stupid, so stupid-”

Every word he says makes me feel worse, and it clicks everything into place, at least as much of it as I know. I want to step back from him, but there’s not really anywhere for me to go. Simon’s dropped down to his height, and I don’t know how he can be so close to someone who’s literally just confessed to orchestrating several large scale crimes.

He’s a kid, though, he is. He’s nameless and scruffy and terrifying but a kid, there’s a goddamn bouncy ball in his pocket, and this is so much more complicated than it should be.

I should go to Possibelf, Penelope, someone.

I end up next to Simon.

“You throw all your weight into. Too much and you do more damage, not enough and- And they fuck it up. You’ve got to imagine it’s a scale. Think about it like you’re balancing it, picture it steady.”

Telling him that is going to get me in so much trouble. I’m going to end up in front of a tribunal and they’re going to decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth and I’ll end up like every one of us who couldn’t be absorbed into Watford.

Knowing that’s not stopping me from showing him my hand though, from demonstrating as a flame bursts into life., first the smallest flicker and then a solid wall “You don’t have to do anything with it at all, whatever you do, but you use too much. Or you don’t have enough, that sounds like the problem. You don’t have enough — experience, ability, whatever.”

He’s interested, for the first time, and something sharp stabs in my chest.

When we’re done, The Boy simply walks out into the main road and vanishes, leaving me with Simon.

I feel sick.

I don’t even have time to warn him before I’m hunched over and gasping and it’s awful, even though I haven’t eaten properly in forever.

Simon brushes the hair out of my face, one hand is rubbing circles into my back, and there’s a faint though that this is the most humiliating set of circumstances I have ever been in.

I wipe my face on my sleeve when I’m done and realise Simon still has one arm around me. This time, at least, there’s no asking if I’m okay. He lets go of me when I straighten up, though he stays by my side the whole walk back to school.

Penelope is still absent from her room when we get back. Snow helps through the window and when we get to our corridor he steers me into his room instead of my own and I don’t quite know what I’m supposed to do. He gestures for me to sit in his desk chair and I do, and it’s then that I notice that his room is weirdly spartan, and even weirder is the fact that he’s showing a glass of water towards me.

I drain it in a few mouthfuls and he gets another before sitting on the end of his bed, his expression oddly intense. It doesn’t Simon, but it stays etched into his features as he says, “He’s not a villain, Baz. He’s just boy.”

“Are you sure about that? He said, he said, you heard him, we know for sure it’s him, he said, and I’m helping him — we’re helping him. You’ve literally been there, I have, when he’s done those things. Dev- Dev got shot because of him and I turned around and told him how to do better!” My voice is raised and I think I’m hitting octaves that are better classified as hysteria.

I’m a disgrace to the Pitch name right now, and that of Grimm; my father would be telling me to myself together.

I have a point though, and I think about what it means for me, and for Simon. “You- You know him, you help him, more than I have, I helped because of you- Does this- Are we?”

“You’re not a villain, Baz. You’re just a boy, too.” Simon’s expression hasn’t changed, but his eyes look sad, and I can’t stand this. He’s not done yet, though, “Me, though. I caused five homes to burn down.”

“You’ve not hurt anyone.”

“Neither have you.” Simon reaches for my hand and I realise it’s trembling. “He hasn’t either, Baz. This is just- Just, think like it’s me. Before Watford. That’s what he’s like.”

It’s still not making sense, none of this is and I know Simon knows a lot more than he’s letting on.

I don’t have it in me to ask more, though, and instead sip my water, trying to keep my hands steady. Simon’s expression is still the same but I don’t dare look at him anymore. I can’t. He’s not telling me everything, though. Sure, I get the need for secrets, I do, but not when- Not when I’ve just taught someone how to better ruin people.

My mouth tastes like copper as I say, “The whole story, Snow. I want it.”

Simon doesn’t look me in the eye, instead, he’s staring somewhere past my knees. “Not today.”

**

Simon knocks on my door three days after that, on a Saturday evening and asks if I’m free.

It’s a weird request because I’m always free and he’s never bothered quite with such courtesy before, and that’s when it hits me. He’s not asking for help and he’s being weird but bold about it and I catch on then.

We walk out of the front door for once, he steers me past Possible with a promise of ‘we’ll be home before eleven, Miss,’ and then we’re out the door. He’s called a taxi and I follow him into it, dumbfounded, and I watch him like a hawk as we drive through London, ignoring the driver’s attempts at small talk until he pulls over, back by the shitty Wetherspoons we went to months ago.

I raise my eyebrow but follow him and he grabs us a corner table and tells me to sit. He comes back with drinks, though he’s gotten us both cokes and I’m reminded that, even between us, we don’t have ID. I nod a thank you, anyway, and we sit there for another five minutes until the silence gets too much for Simon and he says, “I thought it would be easier to talk about this, somewhere quiet.”

No pub in London is ever truly quiet, but I understand. “Thoughtful, Snow. Do you feel like sharing with the class or should I have asked Penelope to break her own rules?”

I shouldn’t be being such a dick to him. I am anyway.

He flushes red at that and I’m reminded of how I felt before Christmas, where I’d watch him and every freckle that disappeared with the rise of blood, and how his head ducks and-

That’s not what we’re here for.

That was a long time ago, or feels like it. Christ, it wasn’t, it’s a month, a month, one measly month but it’s not, it doesn’t feel like that and fuck-

Simon cuts off the tailspinning by asking, “What do you want to know?”

“All of it. I don’t know. What’s his name? I don’t even know that.” I reach for my drink to have something to do with my hands and I want to go back in time and have made a list. I want to have involved Penelope, properly, a long time ago. Everything feels like progress with Penelope around.

“I don’t know who my parents are. I’ve always been in care. Until I was five I was with a family. Then I got another until I was eight, then a school. Then I went to group homes. My name was written on my arm when I was found and that’s all that’s known.” He looks at me like he’s checking that I’m still following. I’m not, but I nod anyway.

“My first group home was when I was eleven. I- They figured out I wasn’t normal then, though there’s always been things,” Simon’s trying to smile, and I know what he means. He turns lights off, skips steps of things sometimes, like he’s just jumping to a conclusion, making things happen. “I had a bad dream and the lights shorted out, caused an electrical surge that became a fire.

“There was no sign it had been me, then, but I did the same to the second home and I was the link there. It wasn’t in my file because my social worker didn’t want the extra work and because he knew nowhere would take. Mick did arrange for me to see specialists, though, to figure it out.”

I raise my eyebrow at ‘specialists’, and Snow nods.

“Yep. Tests, lots of ‘em. There was one guy, doctor but- He wanted to know if it was, he said a lot about DNA. I was twelve, though, I don’t remember much. Just that- I didn’t always like him.”

I’m not liking where this is going. “Snow, when you say you didn’t like him-“

Simon’s smiling, though it looks wrong. “I hated him, Baz. I’d go to him every Thursday and he'd run tests on me and ask me what I could do, what I wanted to do. I didn’t even answer half the time and he’d still fucking talk. I- I went off. Sort of. He was running scans, X-rays or whatever and I didn’t like the machine. They moved me after that. Liverpool, I was sent to. I was brought back, same town, different home when I was fourteen. That’s when I met-“

“Our friendly neighbourhood nightmare?” I interrupt Simon and he shoots me a look, the smile gone.

“Yeah, and he was just around. He wasn’t at the home, I, I guess I thought he had one of his own. When I- burnt down that home, he was there. We’d argued actually. Sort of. Then, Brixton. He came too.”

“And that’s it? The truth, Snow?”

“That’s-“

“Please. ‘I was made this and you know it’? What might that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

We’re hissing at each other over the table and I’m not sure why I’m so angry, or why Simon is. I’m glaring at him and he’s glaring back, though the scowl is somewhat ruined by him opening and closing his mouth like he’s lost for words.

Maybe he is. That would track with how he used to be.

We sit like this until I can’t keep glaring any longer and I lean back in my seat. “Jesus shit, Snow. I get it, secrets are good, but I walked in on you and yours, and yours just happens to be a child shaped horror.”

“I honestly don’t know all of it. He’s not real, real. Like, he’s real but he’s not always. You’ve noticed it, right, he’s not normal?” Two months ago I’d have queried his use of normal. Now, my only interruption is raising my eyebrow and waiting for Simon to be done raking his hands through his hair.

“He’s always the same, he’s twelve and has been for four years. He’s not in the system, my social worker didn’t even believe when I asked. Not- I don’t know his name. I don’t think he’s what he seems, either. And- And he can do anything, almost anything.”

I might laugh.

This is beyond belief, it really is. “Snow, he makes people rob banks and set fires and gives them the ability to do something. And you’re childhood friends with him.”

“I’m not, Baz. I’m not his friend.”

“It sure as hell seems like it.”

Simon looks torn and he’s glaring at me again. “Why are you making this so hard? You wanted to know?”

“I’m not. You’re the one making no sense.” I feel quite justified in my answer until Simon jumps up, knocking the table in his haste and spilling the remains of our drinks and then he’s heading for the door. I run after him, but he’s surprisingly fast even when he’s storming away and slamming doors and he’s halfway down the street when I catch him.

I reach for him, grabbing his arm, and he pulls himself free, shaking me off. “You said it, you walked into this. Why did you help me?”

“Because you asked. Because he- Because I-“

“That is never going to be on you-“

We’re shouting at the same time, and crowds of people are doing what Londoners do best and walking past, pretending we’re not here.

He’s still glaring at me. “Why did you even follow me? You wouldn’t be- You wouldn’t be tied up like this if you’d just stayed at school.”

“You snuck out.”

“You didn’t have to follow me!”

I snort and it comes out derisive, and I’m not sure if I meant for that or not. It makes Simon’s glare fade, even if he now just sort of looks confused.

“You-“ The look of confusion on his face is fading too and Simon’s staring at me like I’m an idiot. It’s a new feeling. I don’t particularly like it. “You don’t even know do you?”

“Know what? Why you never told anyone any of this insanity?”

Simon takes two steps towards me, all emotion now forgotten. “You don’t get why you followed me. Why you helped. Why you’re here now. Great, Penny was right, of fucking course.”

“Penelope? What does she have to do with this?” I’m back to not following, which isn’t fair because I’m supposed to be smarter than Simon, I’m supposed to be getting answers from him, not more questions.

“You like me, Baz. You do, and it’s gotten you trapped in this.” Simon sounds apologetic know and he’s now less than a foot away. “You don’t even know.”

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you, Snow.” I feel myself blushing as I take a step backwards. I- I hate him right now. I seriously hate him because I don’t hate him at all, because he’s right, this is the one thing he’s said tonight that’s true, all the reasons why I’m still here, even if- No, I get it. I do.

“Is it? Is it really?” Simon’s standing in front of me and I think I might kiss him. He’s right here and his lips are hanging open and his eyes are alive. I forget everything I’m saying, every thought I’ve had, and he’s saying something and shaking his head and I seriously think I might kiss him.

“Simon.”

He kisses me then, and anything I might’ve said is forgotten.

The best thing about London is that none of this is uncommon, two boys kissing on the street. There are still people around so Simon sort of has to let go of me, but no one is staring or paying close attention as I try and fail to regain control of my breathing.

Snow seems to understand that we can’t stay here, but we sort of walk aimlessly for a while. I want to kiss him again. Simon seems to want to kiss me again, too, because he waits until we’re relatively alone before looking directly at me and then I can’t help myself.

**

We’re in Simon’s room.

He’s surprisingly good at this kissing thing, and he keeps kissing me so, surely I can’t be too bad at this. He’s doing this nice thing with his chin, moving it up and down and tilting his head. Pushing me back even farther.

It’s nice. It’s better than nice.

I don’t think I want him to stop. Ever.

We’re sort of on his bed, his back’s against the wall and my hands are in his collar. He’s got a hand on my face, another in my hair and he’s so warm.

He didn’t let go of my hand when we walked into Watford. Possibelf had been on door duty, waiting for us, and she let us in without asking any questions, but I that’s the difference between sneaking out and asking. Simon held my hand all the way back here, and that was. Nice hardly seems to cover it.

We shouldn’t be done, with the conversation in the pub, but right now I don’t care about anything else.

I don’t care that Snow’s holding himself above me, making me reach for him, that I am, that I don’t care if it makes him smile crookedly like he didn’t expect it. I don’t care that Snow didn’t expect any of this, because I didn’t either and this is driving at midnight over the speed limit with the windows down. This is fire but hotter and infinitely more dangerous and I don’t care.

**

We’re in my room, sitting on the floor. Well, Simon’s more like laying.

My hands are in his hair and he’s sighing every so often. We’re supposed to have training today, with Minos, dealing with dangerous weather conditions, but being here is far more pleasant and Simon didn’t even need persuading to skip class with me.

I’m smiling. I’ve smiled so much recently that my face hurts.

**

Agatha rolls her eyes at me. Niall offers a grin and a ‘nice one, who was she?’ Dev just snorts at Niall and turns back to eating his dessert.

The subject of the conversation is the dark bruise unfortunately still visible above the collar of my shirt. Simon left it and I didn’t notice until this morning and I’ve spent the whole day trying to angle my head so it’s not noticeable. I’ve not done a very good job at that, evidently.

Simon is sitting two seats away, next to Penelope, and the tips of his ears are red. Obvious. He’s always so obvious.

Penelope is ignoring all of us pointedly, and I love her for it.

I rather hate her when she hands me a tube of concealer later.

**

It ends, eventually. Simon knocks on my door, but he’s wearing a coat and he’s grim-faced and I know that he’s not here to be my- Well. There’s no word for it.

He’s here because, before, I promised to help him despite the fact that that conversation was tabled on the edge of a precipice and we’ve not talked about it since.

Penelope should be in her study so I lead Simon to her room and out the fire escape. We’re silent and it doesn’t fit, but I follow him anyway, this time into Hyde Park and, if we weren’t more dangerous than the usual thugs, it would almost be ominous. Unfortunately, who we’re meeting is worse than any junkie/mugger/random London creep could be, and so being in Hyde Park at eleven at night on a Wednesday isn’t as appalling as it should be.

Simon is holding my hand and I haven’t let go. I probably should, but I don’t want to.

Nothing has been settled and The Boy- Well. There was a call out two days ago. Possibelf went, as did Elspeth and Niall. I might have taught him how to better attack London.

Smart of me, I know.

Simon is jittery and scowling as we wait, but he doesn’t stalk off to mark out a perimeter and I squeeze his hand as a thank you.

The Boy keeps us waiting, and I don’t like it. I want to run, to call my losses and go back to Watford, but I know Simon and he won’t want to, so we wait and wait until a figure pushes through the trees where we’re waiting, just of the path, and it’s not anyone I’m expecting to see.

Penelope is stumbling towards us, her long duffel coat falling off her shoulders and she looks petrified. Understandably.

Behind her is The Boy. He looks triumphant and he crows, “Look what I found, lurking. She was spying on you and I found her. You ought to be right pleased.”

“Jesus shit,” I say, and step forward, reaching for Penelope. She sort of tackles me, but I manage, letting go of Simon to hug her briefly and inspect her, raising an eyebrow and waiting until she shakes her head to turn back to England’s youngest supervillain. “She’s a friend, not a spy.”

Right now, I think she’s probably both, but that’s a problem to deal with later.

“You didn’t use her, did you?” Simon’s voice is stark and he’s leaning forward, one foot in front of Penelope and I want to roll my eyes a little bit. Only a little bit. It’s a question that shouldn’t be asked, it doesn’t even make sense in any other context and yet asking it is understandable right now.

The answer it yields surprises me. “No. You said I didn’t have to.”

“And yet on Tuesday, five postal workers tried to unleash anthrax on central London.” That was the callout, hence why they needed Niall, though as I say it The Boy just looks confused.

“That wasn’t me.”

Simon scoffs and steps forwards again, but The Boy doesn’t seem to notice or care; he’s still looking up at me. “I didn’t do it. I don’t know anthrax.”

Penelope clears her throat. “He doesn’t, Baz.”

“Don’t help here,” I say to her, stupidly. I’m always so stupid where Penelope is involved, but I turn back to The Boy, ignoring Simon since he’s committed to the guard dog impression but is otherwise not my problem.

Penelope is my problem and I want to know why she’s here, and if she’s really okay. She definitely followed us here, though, given the fact that I’m only embroiled in this is because I did the same, I can’t really say anything. The Boy is also my problem, but more in the fact that I don’t really know what he wants from me, why we’re all stood in the middle of Hyde Park.

I give him back my attention, and he glares at me until I ask, “You didn’t do it?”

“Nope.”

The swift shake of his head alleviates some of the tension I can feel in my shoulders, but it’s short-lived as The Boy says, “I wanted to, though. I could have. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to.”

“Right. What do you want, then? Today? Why am I here?” I’m still stood with Penelope and I can feel her flinch beside me, but by now I’m used to being stood opposite him, used to watching the grin on his face evolve into something nastier. “I want to practise. Making people do what I want, that should be fun.”

“You’re definitely not,” Simon growls and it’s like he’s determined to prove the dog metaphor to be correct. He’s by the boy’s side now, yanking him backwards like an extra three feet of space between him and I means anything. To be fair to Simon, it sort of does, actually.

As he says ‘making people’ I’m reminded of the cotton wool feeling he’d given me, of how easy it had been to follow his whim and any distance more makes it seem easier to breathe.

Having Penelope here is surreal because she’s silent now but’s she’s never quiet, but she’s here and she’s stayed behind Simon and I and she’s not saying anything now. I mean, I did tell her not to, but still.

It’s cold and dark and this is kind of the last place on Earth I want to be, and I’m standing in front of a monster. Simon was wrong about him, and maybe this means he was wrong about me, but I’m not staying any longer. “I’m not helping you. Not if you- No. You’re right, I said you didn’t have to, but I don’t have to either. This isn’t helping Simon.”

The Boy’s face screws up but I’m already turning away, Penelope by my side, though Simon isn’t and that hurts. It fucking hurts, but we’re leaving and The Boy doesn’t catch us like he did Simon and I, and Penelope leads me to the park entrance (of course she knows exactly where we are).

“Basilton.” Penelope’s voice is warning all by itself, without her saying my name, and I guess this means that there’s no longer any doubt whatsoever whether she knows.

I don’t dare look at her, we just keep walking. “I know, Penelope, I really, really, know.”

**

There’s surprisingly little to actually talk about with Penelope. We get back to Watford, climb into her window and she just raises an eyebrow when I shut the window and turn the lock.

“Do you-“ She begins, and I shake my head.

“No.”

“Did he-“

“Yes.”

“To Simon?”

“Yes.”

“Are you-“

“Don’t.” That answer covers a multitude of possible questions. It quietens her for a minute and I pace around her room.

Then she asks, “Are we going to have to do something about this?”

It’s a question I let her get to the end to and I shrug because I don’t know the answer. He should, she probably already does, but that’s Penelope for you, always pretending and always letting you keep your secrets.

Which I haven’t. To Simon. Let him keep his, I mean. And maybe it’s irrelevant because his secret hurts people, but I haven’t and that’s-

I unlock the window.

“Baz,” Penelope says, I turn to her, surprised to see the look she usually saves for Simon when he’s being a disaster aimed at me. Then again, if the shoe fits.

I wrap one arm around her, the briefest of hugs but it counts, I think, and then I leave.

**

Simon knocks on my door at four am.  
  
Penelope and I got back three hours ago, the thought of where he’s been since is mildly terrifying. He’s trying for a smile and it looks wrong, but I let him in. He looks surprised and I can’t help myself. “You didn’t think you’d get this far, did you?”

“No.” He looks sheepish as he says, “Penny told me you locked her window.”

“And then I unlocked it.” I make space for him on the end of my bed, and he sits, leaving a careful space between us.

“That wasn’t great. Tonight. He- I- It, It wasn’t great.” He hesitates for a while and that space might as well be miles. “I’m not good at this.”

“This?”

He gestures at us and bites his lip, looking like if he weren’t really, really trying right now, his hands would raking through his hair. “I’m not good at this.”

“I get it, Snow.” Miles might as well be continents, and this hurts, mores and differently than I thought it could. It’s the wrong thing to say because Simon growls and scrubs a hand over his face. “No, you don’t. I’m terrible at this. But- But I want it. I’d be a terrible boyfriend.”

“Snow, if that’s what you’re worried about- I don’t expect you to be. It’s not like I’ve planned valentines day or anything.”

Simon shakes his head at me, and then he’s standing up, looking me in the eye and sort of…glaring at me. “You really don’t get it, Baz. I want- I want to be your terrible boyfriend.”

“Oh.”

That’s- I’m never telling Penelope about this. I’m not usually this dense.

Simon’s face is sort of shrouded and he takes a step backwards, and I can’t have that.

I stand up, reaching for him, and he seems surprised by this but I don’t give him chance to say anything else because I kiss him. Admittedly, it’s not really a kiss but a challenge. Simon meets me anyway, shoving his face into mine and it only stops because he walks me into the end of my bed and I don’t manage to stay upright.

“Yes,” I say, pressed beneath Simon and my duvet and Simon is blushing and a mess, his head hidden in my neck, but he hasn’t moved. “You can be my terrible boyfriend.”

**

The problem with sneaking out at night and letting such affairs become a regular occurrence is that you’re constantly tired.

I have English with one of the tutors they bring in for us, and I can’t keep my eyes open. I haven’t been able to focus all day, and it’s the tiredness, but also the fact that Simon kissed last night until my mouth was sore. In the face of that, I don’t care one whit for Othello, not today, yet we’re being made to read aloud, and I’ve been made Iago.

I keep missing my lines and the teacher keeps glaring at me over his glasses and asking, “Mr Pitch?”

The next time this happens, Agatha shows me her page, halfway through Act Three, but instead of finding it for myself in my copy, I take her book and try to figure out what’s actually happening. “Men should be what they seem, or those that be not- Those that be- Those that be not, would they might seem none.”

Sometimes, I really hate Shakespeare.

It’s Gareth who’s been cast as Othello. “Certainly, men should be what they seem.”

“Why then, I think Cassio’s an honest man.”

Gareth is unfortunately very good at Shakespeare and he’s not even reading from the book as he says, “Nay, yet there’s more in this. I prithee speak to me as to thy thinkings, as thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts the worst of words.”

There’s a whole monologue for me next, and I have to read it a couple of times whilst everyone waits to even comprehend what I’m saying. “Good my lord, pardon me, though I am bound to every act of duty, I am not bound to that all slaves are free to. Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false, as where’s that palace whereinto foul things sometimes intrude not? Who has that breast so pure wherein uncleanly apprehensions leep leets and law-days and in sessions sit with meditations lawful?”

It takes me so long to stumble through the speech that I’m made to give the book back to Agatha and our teacher leaves me alone for the rest of the class.

Simon meets me outside the door, and he’s red-faced like he’s just run here from science. I don’t ask if he did, though, I just let him take my hand and walk me from the classroom.

This in itself is surprising, but I don’t really care. There’s no one that it matters we’re seen by, there’s no reason not to be seen by anyone. Well. I hadn’t exactly been advertising who I was to people, and I hadn’t thought Simon was either, but it turns out that, with his hand in mine, I don’t really care.

I still have my bag and so does he and we’re in uniform, but instead of leading us to the games room or even the dining room for tea, he’s walking us to towards the front door, where Holloway is, today, on duty. He raises an eyebrow when he sees us, but doesn’t say anything other than, “You boys know when you need to be back by, right?”

“Yes, Sir,” I say, and Simon just shrugs at Holloway, and then we’re out, out again without climbing down twenty feet of rickety metal stairs and trying not to make too much noise.

Simon’s still holding my hands and, despite the fact that it’s February, the sun is sort of out and it’s an unbelievably nice day. At least it feels like it is, even if I don’t think I’ll be able to stay awake for whatever Simon has planned. Wait- Does he have something planned?

It’s sort of a burning question and I can’t help but ask, “Where are we going, Snow?”

The answer is possibly the best thing I’ve ever heard. “For coffee. That okay?”

“More than, Snow.” I squeeze his hand and try not to ask the follow-up questions of where, when and what counts as coffee because right now I’d take an injection of caffeine right into my bloodstream.

London is always busy, but it’s a quieter Thursday afternoon and I quite like this walking together, hand holding thing. Especially when it’s like this, rather than being dragged through Brixton, but I don’t want to think about that. I hold Simon’s hand a little tighter and he turns to smile at me — he’s always smiling, now, and I think I like that about him — before rolling his eyes slightly. “You want to know where exactly, don’t you?”

“Perhaps.”

He’s still smiling, though, despite me (because of me?) and he says, “Kensington. I’ve never been there, thought we could walk over. You can show me around?”

“Why can I?”

“You and Penny have been, she’s got all the crap from the museums.” He’s blushing again, but he’s still looking at me, and I like this all so much. “We were twelve, Snow, and I was with Penelope, I didn’t need to look at a map all day.”

I’m laughing now, but so is Simon, and we keep walking, until the crowds feature more people with cameras and posters and there’s the site of Hyde Park just visible, but I’m ignoring that and I know Simon is too.

There are three different Starbucks in Kensington and Simon chooses the one closest to the Natural History Museum, meaning we have to queue behind all the tourists, but Simon makes me crowd spot for people wearing vending machine rain ponchos despite the sun and those wearing I heart London t-shirts and I survived the Dungeons hats until I’m giggling, practically, and it should be embarrassing, but Simon’s laughing too, almost too hard to coherently give his order to the barista when it’s our turn.

He drinks his frappuccino I ordered for him as we walk to the museum, and he lets go of my hand to eat the whipped cream from his drink in a manner that’s faintly disgusting, but I watch him anyway and try not to smile visibly.

Technically, the museums are free to enter, so we duck into the Natural History Museum, even though it’s only open for another hour. We end up in their ‘history of the earth’ section walking under a twenty-five-foot whale skeleton, and I ask, without even knowing that I was going to, “You said your name was written on your arm. You kept it, even though it’s…well, it’s weather... Didn’t you ever want to change it?“

I’m afraid I’ve royally put my foot in it, then. We walk under the jawbone of the whale skeleton and into the next exhibit in silence, and it takes another minute, a minute which I spend wondering if I can set my self on fire and spare myself being awkwardly dumped by Simon, a minute that feels like eternity has passed, for Simon to say, “Doesn’t feel right to. Whoever left me, they cared enough to give me a name, didn’t they?”

I reach for his hand and squeeze and it feels like an apology. Simon squeezes back and says, “I used to think they’d come back for me; they’d be a model and a footballer, who’d just had to give me up. Imagine if they came back for me and I was called Danny or Leo Smith or something.”

He brightens then and peers at me, eyes narrowed as he asks, “Besides, what’s wrong with Snow?”

“It’s weather, Simon.” I try for a smile and he returns it. “Alright, Basilton.”

I gasp in mock outrage and lean into his side, “You forgot Tyrannus.”

“For a good reason.” He elbows me but lets me keep leaning in and I laugh.

“My mother chose that,” Before he can apologise or we have to relive another eternity of silence, I add, “God knows why.”

“Basilton was clearly not bad enough.”

Simon’s teasing is all delivered with a smile and arm around my shoulder and I like this better than how we used to be. I like this better than fighting. Having Simon’s arm around me makes it easier to smile too, even as I say, “Clearly. If she came back — and she’s not, Penelope told me the zombie apocalypse is unlikely to happen — I’d definitely ask her what she was thinking.”

“How did she die?” Simon asks, and I think it’s fair that he does. It’s not a difficult question to answer.

Simon might even know most of it, there’s the wall of photos at Watford with everyone’s faces and hers is there too. Minos teaches about the people on the wall, sometimes. It is only sometimes, but Natasha Grimm-Pitch wasn’t just a team member, she ran Watford, she should be talked about more.

“On a callout for Watford. She used to be- I guess she used to be Possibelf. Actually in charge, pretending to listen to the Salisburys and then doing what she liked. She had fire too, she was like a dragon…I was four, my father had me home with him. He’s never liked Watford very much, so my mother travelled home to us. I didn’t even get to see her before-“

Simon’s arm on my shoulder becomes an arm around my waist, an awkward half-hug that’s not necessary but I don’t shrug off.

We keep wandering around the museum, though every so often Simon asks me a random question.

“What’s your favourite ice cream?”

“You have a sister, right?”

“What would you trade for fire, if you could have someone else’s ability?”

Eventually, after museum staff have had to ask us to leave and we’re on our way back to Watford, Simon runs out of questions and we walk back in the quiet of the London traffic. He’s quiet until we’re on the stairs and it’s then he asks, “Baz? Can I kiss you?”

“You’re ridiculous, Snow,” I say, but I lean into him anyway.

**

Penelope tries to discuss things with me twice.

The first time, it’s the Friday afterwards and I try, I honestly try, but it’s not about The Boy or Simon or what can done about it, or even why she was there, but about Brixton and things I don’t want to talk about. Things I’m not going to talk about.

She gets three questions into her enquiry before I stand up, hands trembling, and I walk out, and I don’t get the point in her asking.

The second time, she sticks to what I know, and what she knows from Simon without doing the thing where she instantly manages to source a dossier on him and discussing this without him here feels like a betrayal.

“What has he said? How did he explain it?”

“Penelope. It was a mess okay? They’re old friends, though The Boy never changes. They were in care together, but The Boy’s not really real. I don’t fucking know.”

“I’m only trying- To make sense of it- Basil, that’s all I’m trying to do.”

“And I get that, but there’s nothing that makes sense about it. He’s basically just an evil, miniature Simon, based on what he can do.”

As I say that, Penelope falls silent. I give her five minutes to see if she’ll snap out of before giving up and leaving her to it.

**

There’s a callout not long after that.

They only want Penelope, though.

Holloway comes for her when we’re crammed into the games room with a mix of six and fifth years, playing a fifth year’s copy of Just Dance. It’s Just Dance 1 being played on a Nintendo Wii, so not only is it ancient, but all the songs are objectively terrible. There’s something almost hilarious about watching people try to challenge Agatha, given that Agatha is the only person who has the speed to actually make every move and win.

So far, she’s defeated Gareth, Dev and two of the fifth year girls, and she and Penelope ore discussing strategy (Penelope’s telling her every step that’s about to come up) when the door to the games room heaves open and Holloways steps inside, searching.

He stops when his eyes land on Penelope and he Ades through the sea of students to reach her and, although he’s quiet, everyone hears him say, “You’re needed; Possibelf wants you in the garage in five. Your uniform will be there.”

Holloway leads Penelope out, Simon jumping up from next to me after them before I can stop him, and I follow. Someday, I’m going to learn not blindly follow after Simon, but today’s not that day.

Simon has already reached Holloway when I catch them, and Holloway looks hassled, with his arms folded. “Snow, you weren’t asked for.”

“I just want to know what it is. Why you’re taking Penny but not the rest of us.”

Simon glances at me when I appear at his side and Holloway nods like this is expected but an inconvenience and he sighs when I chip in, “You’re supposed to be teaching us, right? Why only take Penelope? You can least tell us, can’t you?”

“Jesus, you two don’t stop.” Holloway glances down at his watch and then in the direction of the garage before back at us. “We need Bunce because she’s Bunce. She…knows more about this, and we know pretty much nothing. Snow, you’re a bomb, we don’t need you. And Pitch-“

There’s an appraising glance being thrown my way and then Holloway juts his head towards the garage. “You…you’re useful. Come along.”

“Not without Simon.” I know why Simon is so desperate to go and I’m sure as shit not going without him. I hold my head up and wait until Holloway rolls his eyes, glares at me and I see him mentally shrug and go ‘fuck it’.

“Take it up with Possibelf. Let’s go.”

Simon and I follow him to the garage and Possibelf is’t surprised to see us. My bet’s on Penelope there. Suits are thrown at us and Simon looks kind of surprised but gets changed anyway and we get sent to a Range Rover. As I open the door, Penelope mutters, “It took you long enough to get down here.”

Simon rolls his eyes at her as he climbs in and sits next to her and I shut the door once I’m in. The second it’s shut, Penelope leans forwards and hisses, “It’s him. This- This is about him.”

I don’t need to ask about the him, but before I even could Possibelf is opening the driver’s door, Minos taking the front passenger seat, and we’re going. Minos grumbles that we shouldn’t be here when Possibelf tells us the sitrep and I meet his eyes once in the rearview mirror and I know that he knows I’ve been skipping out of training for the past two months.

Possibelf’s eyes never once leave the road as she tells us, “The police were called in this morning to a building where a disturbance was reported. They checked it out and it was a laboratory, illegal by the looks of it, full of- Living specimens, we’ll say. What little the police understand suggest it’s linked to us, to Watford and what we can do. We’re investigating and clearing out the site. They’re holding someone, they found them there. It’s a child, though, from what we were told.”

Simon stiffens like he’s been electrocuted, and I understand. At least, I think I do until I look at his face and he looks ill, ashen and wide eyed and there’s the feeling that he knows more again, more than I do. I glance at Penelope, but her face is blank and her head’s at the angle that suggest she’s using the internet to double check what she naturally knows. “The building’s owned by a shell company. A small one, impressive for London. Traces back to a David Llewyn, eventually. He’s a doctor, focus on genetics and had his license removed for repeatedly trying to get permission to conduct research on powered individuals.”

Penelope’s voice never changes as she speaks, but I’ve never appreciated that until now. It makes it easier to keep a straight face and not look at Simon because there are dots connecting, even if there maybe shouldn’t be.

Possibelf doesn’t rush through the London traffic, so it takes us another fifteen minutes after that to get there, though it would be impossible not to realise where we were going from the sheer number of police vehicles.

The cordon cuts out into a lane of traffic already, and there are people swarming in and out of the building already, and Possibelf hands us all earpieces as we step out of the vehicle. “Pitch, coordinating, Bunce, you’re intel, work with Minos. Snow, with me.”

Penelope nods, but I can tell she’s already lost focus, sifting through everything she knows, and Minos leads her out of the way. I go to greet the officer in charge and she starts talking too quickly and won’t look directly at anyone wearing the Watford uniform. “We were called in this morning when neighbours heard shouting and it sounded like an adult arguing with a child. We arrived and disturbed the dispute, there was indeed a child, an adolescent male. We’re keeping him in the back of a van because-“

“-of what he can do.” I interrupt and then duck my head, apologising. If there was any doubt whether Simon and I were right to ask to come, it’s almost gone.

“Exactly. The other party was nowhere to be found, but we had access to the building and what we found- There are- We don’t know what we found. You’re the experts here.” The officer walks me around the perimeter and I get a glimpse of the van in question.

“What did he do? The child you found?”

“There was an incident…There was- The two officers first sent to the scene destroyed evidence — a computer —, turned on each other, one had a taser that was discharged on the other. They missed a check-in and we arrived to find them and the child. Both swear they didn’t want to do it.”

My stomach drops and I make sure that I’m looking right at the officer as I say, “Believe them, they didn’t.”

She nods and leaves me near the station Penelope is being set up at and I do my best to relay the information on comms, though I get no acknowledgement and Penelope cuts me off before I can repeat myself to announce, “Holloway has arrived.”

I double back to meet him at the cordon, really the intel to Possibelf, still without getting a response. Holloway shakes his head when I repeat it and it’s like they’ve forgotten hat my only role here is. He does tell me to follow him, though, and I do, following him all the way to the holding cell where the child they recovered is being kept.

Again, the officers guarding the van don’t look directly at us, and when Holloway raises an eyebrow there’s no real need to explain. Sure, this is probably exacerbated by the incident, but we’re the freaks here and this is something dark and sinister and us-adjacent.

They open the van for us anyway, and my lack of doubt is confirmed to be correct at the sight of The Boy, resplendent in the same baggy jeans and t-shirt that I last saw him in three weeks ago.

He grins when he sees me and I flinch automatically, regretting it instantly because I know Holloway saw it. He’s introduced to us by his guards as an ‘unnamed pre-adolescent male. Was engaged in a physical dispute with our suspect before the suspect fled. Did not require medical attention’.

Holloway nods and turns away from the van, unbothered by its occupant, and he stares at me coolly for a second before asking, “Is it him?”

Shit.

I blink at Holloway, trying not to look like the rug has been pulled out from under me, though I’m not convinced I’m not failing miserably. “I’m sorry?”

To his credit, Holloway doesn’t lookout me like I’m stupid, he just asks again. “Is it him? In your reports, you’ve mentioned a kid at every scene. Same one. Figured it must be. Is it him here?”

I nod weakly and wonder when this became a thing that they were addressing. I’d ask, but Possibelf finally comes in over comms and requests Holloway joins her.

He goes and he’s maybe five feet from the building when he asks, “Pitch? You coming?”

**

Inside is like the scene from the first Jurassic Park film.

You know, with the billionaire and the dragon eggs and the mad scientist who can’t see that reanimating dinosaurs is a bad idea that they shouldn’t do just because they can?

Actually, this place makes that look entirely normal.

Police officers stand by the door, but inside there’s practically no one apart from Possibelf and Simon and Simon still looks grey. I follow Holloway and let him take the brunt of Possibelf’s displeasure at my presence, though she does nod at me. “Mr Pitch, feel free to take a look around. Snow, stay with him; we’ll check the upstairs, use comms if you find anything.”

Holloway nods us and is first out of the door, though Possibelf surveys both Simon and me before leaving too. The concern, or maybe it’s suspicion, is slightly worrying, but I don’t have it in me to care.

The pieces are falling into place: a doctor in Brixton, a specialist, Simon’s pale face and, of course, The Boy. What the picture is, I have no clue, but I don’t think I’ve taken random pieces and am just jamming them together; there’s definitely a link.

Simon and I are alone in an examination room, just off of the main entrance and he’s not looking around. At first, there’s nothing odd about this, until I look more closely and see that nothing in this room is really used. The last time I went to a GP, with Mordelia over the summer, the doctor’s room was a mess. Sheets, test equipment, scales, posters, you name and it was spilling out of the cabinets.

There’s nothing here. Not even for a specialist only seeing…seeing people like us. The compute rain here is fine, it’s not burned or destroyed so there must be another, and when I tap on the keyboard, a screensaver pops up, a generic photo of a man and woman, looks like a holiday photo, but it’s the woman who surprises me. I’ve seen her face, so many times.

She’s on the wall at Watford, she’s Lord Salisbury’s sister. He’s not here for this, but that’s probably for the best, considering. I follow Possibelf’s command, “Computer in here is locked, the screensaver is- You need to see it.”

“I’ll come back in a minute,” Holloway answers and I can picture him rolling his eyes at me.

I keep looking, opening desk drawers, but there’s not much. Simon is still staring at the wall, at the height chart on it, and there’s something not right about that. “Snow?”

He ignores me.

“Snow? Anybody home?”

I stand next to him and stare at it and I see why. There are height markings on the chart of someone, definitely a child, and the initials next to the markings are SS. It’s another piece of the jigsaw puzzle but it’s also something I didn’t expect and I rest my hand on Simon’s arm. He doesn’t shrug me off, just keeps staring and I take my earpiece out as I ask, “Simon?”

It comes out harsher than I intend when I add, “Anything you want to tell me?”

“You’ve figured it out, Baz. Clearly, you have.” He sounds stressed beyond belief and I can’t help but wonder what we’re going to find elsewhere.

“Not all of it. Just- Specialist, you said. Here, right?” I try to sound like I’m not piecing things together as I say it, though I’m not sure if I’m succeeding or not.

“I- That’s. All of it.” Simon’s hand searches for mine and I take it, though there is protocol about this and fraternisation policies for the adults, and I let him walk me out here to the next room along, which seems to be a staff room, though there’s an open door at the back that Simon gestures for me to follow him through.

This is never the kind of thing that leads to a nice room, one full of puppies and guarantees that there are no bodies or gore or things that I would only be able to explain in a therapist’s office with dolls. “Simon?”

He beckons for me to follow, though when I raise my earpiece up to ask, he shakes his head.

Then we’re standing in the Jurassic Park laboratory but it’s worse. So. Much. Worse.

I can recognise what I think are DNA samples, incubators and scanners, but there’s technology here beyond my wildest dreams and I’m not even sure all of it is technology. It’s like- Well. There are projections of scans of someone, of a child, and simulations of a genome sequence, with markers flagging up select genes. There’s also blood and a mess that suggests more than a minor disturbance, scorch marks where I’d say where a computer once was by the door, and I have a horrible feeling this is the sight of the disturbance and that this is still a ‘nice’ room.

Simon isn’t looking at any of this, though, but marching through to another door, and I have to stop him now. “Protocol, Simon. Come on. At least let me know what we’re doing.”

He isn’t surprised by any of this, though I don’t understand why not. “You said tests, X-rays that you didn’t like, that was- That was here?”

There’s no acknowledgement that I’ve said anything, he’s waiting by the door, twisting at the handle even though it’s clearly locked. “Simon- Please, just explain all of this to me.”

I don’t want him to open that door. I have a horrible feeling there’s a person somewhere that way and I don’t want to be the one to find him because that kind of thing never ends well. Simon still isn’t looking directly at me and I can feel my temper starting to slip. “Tell me what’s going on, Simon. Now!”

“I can do that.”

At the sound of that voice, all my anger melts away and I know that, if I turn around, I’m going to come face to face with someone who should be locked inside a police van. I remember the moment, with the chess set when he kicked his foot and touched nothing, but that’s not something that’s possible.

Clearly, though, it is, because The Boy’s standing behind us.

Simon finally joins me, though I’m not sure if he’s even on the planet right now.

The Boy is staring at him like this is oddly disappointing, though he spins around to face and the grin is etched into his face. He gestures at the nearest projection, the one of the genome that’s been mapped out and he says, “This is me, you know. Every bit of me, stretched out.”

“You’re wrong, it’s me.” Simon’s voice is full of fire, even if his face looks like he’s shutting down.

The Boy just shrugs. “Like I said, it’s me.”

That makes Simon look at him, though there’s no sign of life on his face. “It’s not- It’s- It’s.”

“It’s, it’s, it’s,” The Boy’s taunting him, smirking, and I don’t have the patience for this. This isn’t how I thought today would go, hell, this isn’t how I thought this callout was supposed to go. I figured this was a fire or robbery or something, not- Not revisiting how fucked up everything about Simon is.

Not that-

Fuck it. It’s true at this point. He’s a disaster.

I am, however, stood next to him.

There are creaks coming from upstairs and we don’t have long. Logically, Possibelf has to know. She does. They just have to. But this is Simon’s- Simon’s history. His secrets, and I’ve not done a good job of keeping those. And well, I’m up to my neck in this already. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Closing my eyes for a second, I squeeze the earpiece in my hand until I hear it crack and then turn to Simon, grabbing his from him. Then I turn to The Boy and I’m impressed with how steady my voice is, despite the close proximity, when I ask, “Why are you here, why are we here, what’s behind that door?”

“I was here because he wanted me to.” The Boy sits up himself up on a counter, knocking equipment and I reflexively wince. “Every Thursday. Testing.”

Simon’s head snaps up, though I’m not sure if he’s surprised by the words or the truth behind them. I ignore him, raising my eyebrow at The Boy to get him to continue. He swings his legs under the desk and ignores me until I cough. “And I- He wasn’t happy. You’re here ‘cause people were stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Right. Okay.

“Who, and I know I’m going to regret asking this, is he? The doctor?”

“He wants to make us better, yeah.”

That’s not a good answer. Simon is staring at the floor like it’s the most riveting thing here. When I ask, my question is more aimed at him. “What’s behind the door?”

The Boy chimes up, “Not allowed back there.”

Simon shrugs then, and I’m rethinking my stance on this. It’s late in the day, though, for rethinking and I nod, walking towards the door and trying the handle, even though I know it’s going to be locked. I don’t wait for a key or for Simon, but melt the lock, lighting a fire in my hand and melting the mechanism until the door gives. The Boy is by my side and this would be a wake-up call if ever there was one, but Simon pushes past me and shoves the door open and-

I hate it when I’m right.

There’s a man in the room, shoving belongings into bags, haphazardly grabbing papers, and then I really get it.

There are photos of The Boy everywhere, but they’re old photos, years, and it’s not The Boy. Sure, the subject is a kid, forever, twelve, but there’s change showed in the photos, a years worth of change, like the height markers on the wall, and bronze curls and blue eyes, which I’ve avoided noticing on The Boy before now, but I know it’s not him. It’s Simon, twelve-year-old Simon, with a closed off face and wide eyes.

And it’s Simon in the photos and it’s Simon in-

In-

In The Boy’s face, and that’s-

Jesus shit.

It’s there, the dot to dot. There’s a picture emerging now, but I don’t get how this place, how a doctor links them all-

“You went off.” I say, and it’s not the right time because Simon’s bolting for the window, stopping the man before he can get there, and it’s not the right time because I can hear footsteps in the rooms we’ve just left, “You didn’t like the X-rays, the tests, the questions. You went off, and you- What? Made him? Are him? He’s-“

“He is not me.” Simon turns around and it’s the first time he’s had any colour in his face since I walked in behind Holloway, though he’s more focused on the man, who’s sort of stood in the middle of the space, which is part laboratory, part living space, part shrine, and has nowhere to go.

He- Well. The man looks a mess, though I’m inclined to chalk that up to fighting with the most terrifying twelve-year-old, hiding from the police when they show up and being trapped in what’s basically all the evidence needed to lock you away. The name Penelope spat out was David, David Llewyn, and somehow, he looks Welsh. Maybe that’s unfair, I’ve never actually been to Wales before. Maybe he just looks like he’d be up for illegally testing on children.

He drops the bag he’s holding and turns to me, his mouth drawn up into a sneer. “He is not Simon. He’s- An echo. A decoy. A disappointment.”

The Boy pulls a face at that and shakes his head, mouthing to himself. Simon is tense and I can see the air around him blurring, and I’m trying to do the maths. Get to Simon or block the doorway. I actually feel- Well, I feel sick, but that’s irrelevant. Something about this man is definitely wrong, and the way he looks at all of us- It’s like he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.

Before I can say anything, or reach Simon, or even turn to see if Possibelf and Holloway have reached the Jurassic Park room, David rails on The Boy again, this time berating him directly. It’s a bold move, I admit. “You couldn’t even do one task, right. I told you, make them destroy the lab themselves. You led them here, and you couldn’t even-“

Moderation. Too much or too little. Jesus.

This is actually my worst nightmare, and I walked right into it.

The Boy’s still mouthing to himself, though it’s not really mouthing now and he stamps his foot in a fashion I’ve never seen used genuinely before, and he hurls himself towards David. I almost don’t make it out of the way, because David and The Boy stagger out into the Jurassic Park laboratory of nightmares. It’s then that I decide that whether he’s Simon or not is slightly irrelevant because he’s glowing the way Simon does, the way Simon sort of is, and there’s a chant of ‘am not, am not, am not’.

David gets thrown back into the lab further, staggering into the desk with the incubator, and there’s a thud as he and whatever was in there hits the floor. The Boy is stood over him and I’m not liking the ghost-like ability there. I move to stop him, getting to the doorframe but Simon gets there first, and it’s like they’re going nova, exploding.

David tries crawling away from them, way from where Simon has The Boy pinned, and he’s making- Well, he’s making for the door and that’s the dumbest option, because Possibelf is in sight now, and because, out there, it’s crawling with police.

I still try to stop him, though. I shouldn’t, because I’m not useful, I’m not, but I try, and I add fire to the mess. There’s two- There’s a living bomb, the most complicated mess of data I’ve ever seen, and this man, who by all appearances isn’t one of us, is just normal, and now things are on fire.

Simon is my next priority because they’re not fighting now, The Boy is reaching for Llewyn, but Simon has him, though they’re still- This is still a Snow situation. It’s a Snow situation and I throw myself into it. Literally. He’s blurring and panting, an element, practically, but I grab for Simon and shout, “You need to stop now!”

It’s worse than the tube station. Worse than a fire that isn’t mine, worse than walking away with Penelope, and I can feel the lead in the air as I try again, “Please, Snow- Simon.”

The Boy wriggles free as I take Simon’s hand and again, I’m yelling at him, expecting him to listen, and he does. The Boy might be a universe unleashed, but Simon’s eyes are blue again and I drag him up and then he’s dragging me away and The Boy is more of a bomb than I’ve ever seen Simon, he’s unstable, a blaze of red coming from him and then Simon’s pulling me out, into the staff room at Possibelf and Holloway’s feet.

From the floor, it’s easier to look behind us than up and I notice that the door is somehow shut behind us, but Simon’s still faintly glowing so I’m attributing that to him. It’s not doing much to disguise the glow and sparks coming from the other side, and I can’t help but think that all the evidence, everything is on the other side of the door.

Possibelf takes one look at him and me and orders us up and then yells into her comms about a ‘Snow-like event’ and then I’m dragging Simon out of the building, which isn’t so much a building as a shower of bricks and mortar and cement.

Penelope and Minos are visible, and a lot of the police are now behind the curtain, observing us and the now-pile of rubble. Possibelf and Holloway pick themselves up before Simon and I do, and when Holloway offers me a hand he says, “You boys have got some explaining to do.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading, guys, i'd love to see what you thought,,
> 
> epilogue should be up pretty soon,,


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